Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - The Magical Language of Others

Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

19 reviews

sofvvv's review against another edition

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4.75

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hoiyan's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

It was better to pay with your children than to stay with them. That was how it had always been.

the story, or rather, documentation of the life of a complicated mother-daughter relationship told through (love?) letters and stories of the past. this HUUURTTTT.

i appreciated Koh's honesty throughout. she didn't shy away from detailing the events that unfolded, but i also wish i could have seen more of her direct line of thought, whatever it may have been rather than just a documentation-type of narration. there were a lot of unsaid words in between the prose, but i found myself wanting just a little more from Koh herself as she reacted and navigated these complicated feelings. it's difficult to critique a memoir seeing as it's... another's life story, so my opinion here is pretty superficial.

i found the writing to be a bit monotonous, and despite Koh being a poet, i couldn't ground or immerse myself in her writing as much as i would've loved to. HOWEVER! i really did enjoy reading this for the topics Koh laid out bare for the world to see.

i loved the incorporation of her mother's letters, and how the two indirectly communicated to each other through the letters and this book. the two respectively feel so intimate, yet the ways they were delivered feel SO, so lonely. Koh does a great job in showing and inferring her own loneliness throughout the book, and touches on the theme of forgiveness a little bit towards the end. the generational trauma of abandonment and quiet resentment for one's own mother... OUCH. Koh's incorporation of both her grandmothers' history was gut-wrenching, and i almost wish there was more of it, if it were possible at all. i wanted those sections to connect to Koh's own sentiments about her mother, but Koh didn't directly convey her own feelings in that way, which i found lacking.

Koh's mother wrote letters as an attempt to emotionally accompany her daughter whilst physically abandoning her. in a way, i think i saw her mother's letters as her mother begging for forgiveness whether now, or in the future when Koh's able to process her situation better. each letter that's revealed as the book progresses makes readers feel a deep, deep anger and sadness. i personally don't see the ending as Koh learning to forgive. i wanted to see more of Koh's emotional grief of (in a way) losing her mother to something materialistic. maybe this portrayal was accurate in how she coped with the situation, but the narration felt distant in a book that's heavily relies on personality and self-reflection.

to all the asian-american/canadian daughters out there: this book will come towards you at full speed. the bit near the end about Koh and her parents talking about her job as a writer hit me like a truck and broke all my bones. that, extending into the scene of Koh's mother accompanying her on a work trip and telling people of her daughter's job made me feel a bit too much. the anger Koh felt there--i wanted more of that throughout the book. it finally felt real and less documentary-like.

i think i understood most, if not all of Koh's struggles here which just made it that much harder to finish. the story and idea was beautiful and so creative, but the writing could definitely have been developed more for a better execution.

My mother refused to come back to the cabin until I apologized. But I could not say sorry because of how it might feel to see the pride in her face, as if the way I had grown taller and prouder was a result of her raising me.

(and i feel this quote so deeply. i wanted more of this anger!)

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

3.5

The Magical Language of Others is a memoir with a unique format which explores some fascinating themes including mother-daughter relationships, abandonment, inter-generational trauma, forgiveness and identity. When the author was 15 her parents returned to Korea for a career opportunity for her father, leaving her and her older brother alone in the United States, ostensibly for three years but contract extensions pushed that out to seven. This was obviously a pivotal event in the author’s life, and was undoubtedly connected to her beginning to skip school, developing disordered eating, and experiencing suicidal thoughts. What makes this memoir unique is that is structured around letters that her mother wrote to her from Korea. Rediscovering the letters, replicas of which are included in the book, and translating them into English the author begins to develop more of an understanding of her mother, and processes again her own feelings about the separation. The reader is privy to some of this, for instance the alternative word choices that are included in the translations. I loved this demonstration of how translation is an inexact art, rather than a precise science, and I wondered how the emotional impact of these letters affected the translation process. Other aspects of the family history are interspersed between the letters and their translations and added an additional layer of depth to the story. I found the letters very revealing of the mother’s mixed feelings and torn loyalties, between a wife expected to support her husband, and a mother, wanting to be with her daughter who she was aware needed her. I found the overall tone of this memoir to be slightly detached and opaque which meant it hit me more in the head than the heart. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just not what I would have predicted going in.

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