Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Finding Junie Kim

A painful but beautiful story. Oh does a great job of portraying complex histories and modern issues in an accessibly way for YA readers. I especially appreciated the family relationships, which showed a dynamic I don't often see in YA lit.

Content Warnings

pika_chuu's review against another edition

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emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes

5.0

Cried so much while reading. My heart really ached reading this. A must read. Hits a lot of heavy topics in a great way <3 Such a great middle grade book.

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greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bronsonmh's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I thought this was a very powerful middle grade novel. Junie is such a great main character. She is a young girl who loves her family, but also suffers from anxiety and depression privately for awhile until she gets help. It is all because of the bullying and racism she faces at school. When she gets an assignment for school to do an oral history project she decides to make a video interview with her grandparents who were both children in the Korean War and how each of them experienced something similar and something different. During this time she helps her friends put something together to teach their fellow students about racism and how it is bad. I like how the author intertwined Junie's story and her grandparents. I think this book is something both middle graders, young adults, and adults should read. If middle schoolers read this I think they should read it with their parents so that there can be an open discussion about everything that happens in the book. From racism, mental health, to the Korean War. I listened this via audiobook and thought it was great.

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alenka's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A very emotional story about Junie Kim, a seventh grader, who spirals into depression after facing racist bullying at school. Junie finds solace and strength in her family, and begins to record her grandparents' stories about the atrocities and traumas they witnessed during the Korean war.

Oh makes very clear points with this story. I read an ARC of this book so there was not yet an an author's note at the end, but it's dedicated to Oh's parents and all the survivors of the Korean war. There is a great emphasis on the importance of learning and recording Junie's grandparents' stories, even though they are difficult and traumatic to hear. Junie learns that if she doesn't talk to her grandparents their stories will be lost - her own family history will be lost. Both her parents worked to protect their families and friends in different ways, and Junie also learns to draw strength and inspiration from those acts. While the racism she faces in the modern era has a different shape, her grandparents experienced and suffered from racism as well, and this propels Junie to want to work to support her own friends and try to change the culture of her middle school. I appreciated that Oh lets Junie do so in her own way. She's not the kind of kid who can stand up to a bully immediately, and she isn't going to jump in front of a crowd giving a speech. Junie's also working on managing her depression - no easy task for a seventh grader. She learns to do anti-racist work in her own way, which is essentially film-making, and finds strength and power in doing so.

My only gripe with this book is that the prose is kind of flat, and sometimes the middle schoolers speak in a kind of proper tone that doesn't feel authentic for their age. However, this is an important and clearly very personal story, and I'm glad Oh has written it.

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mezzano's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Many Americans are not taught about the Korean War and Korean-focused discrimination in our present or history. Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh is at its heart, a story of 12 year old Junie learning how to find her voice in a world that does not want her to speak. Within its pages, we also hear the harrowing stories of Junie's grandparents who survived the Korean War as children. As Junie Kim learns more about her family's past, she learns valuable lessons about herself and the importance of fighting for what's right.

This story is deeply woven with the importance of intersectionality, but never feels forced or preachy to the reader. In the present, Junie must deal with frequent bullying from white classmates amidst a school-wide investigation to find someone committing hate crimes on school grounds. The hate crime targets Junie and the rest of her friend group, which includes a Black and Jewish student. With the help of her grandfather's stories, Junie is able to figure out a way she can make a difference in a way she feels comfortable with. The book also discusses about mental illness, interracial discrimination, and how American racism looks different depending on what race you are. There is also a small blurb about LGBT acceptance (although no one is explicitly LGBT in the novel). I was deeply impressed by the amount of nuance packed in this story, and it's great to see books like this in a middle-grade fiction aisle.

Finding Junie Kim reminds me of other inter-generational stories such as Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. There are heavy descriptions of trauma and wartime sacrifices made in order to keep family together. When reading this book, know that the grandparents' stories covers extreme violence, political unrest, and character deaths (some of whom are children). In Junie's story, racism, hate crimes, slurs, and mental illness are center stage. Despite all the hardships both Junie and her grandparents endure, it is their love for each other that keeps the family woven together. There is a part of the novel where the grandfather expresses how Koreans were able to endure hardship through their sense of community and resilience, which I would consider central themes to the overall novel. Junie thrives only after seeing the professional help she needs for her mental illness (major depressive disorder with suicidal idealization) and has the patient support of her family and friends.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for giving me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts are my own. I would highly recommend any reader interested in this book to preorder Finding Junie Kim or pick it up at a local bookstore on May 4, 2021. Due to the severity of some of the content in this book, I would highly recommend reviewing the content warnings before reading the book.

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