Reviews with content warning for Bullying - If I Had Your Face

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Look I'm a sucker for a good female friendship book. I'm also a sucker for a good non-American/English culture immersion. And this book Delivered on both fronts.
Pros: strong female characters who have hopes and dreams and make mistakes and hard choices and sometimes you agree and sometimes you don't and I love them dearly. I loved how the four POV characters were extremely nuanced and sometimes typecast the other POV characters. Like it's easy to say that Miho is a daydreamer and isn't practical and sometimes the other POV characters will remark about how naive she is. But then Miho will get the reins and we'll see how she broke down every decision in her chapter. I was so excited to learn about the background story for each character. And I was so excited to see them support each other throughout the book. But even with this shiny, hopeful friend group, the author did a magnificent job of explaining and showing how cutthroat the world is for them. One thing that really strikes me is how carefully many words were used to give a non-Korean reader the exact impression of what happened. Words like "service" in the context of the room salons contrasted with the clinic. It's a subtle but thrilling difference.
Cons: A lot of what builds each POV character is their back story. The author carefully alludes to this or that to keep the reader interested in the beginning. But this kind of leads to a middle section that can drag a tiny bit because the book takes a passive shift. A lot of the character arcs are about finding hope and support, so the arcs are also at a stage where they aren't taking action. The two issues compound in the middle of the book. As a result, it can feel like not much of the actual story occurred. I think the book both is and isn't slice of life. Or at least, I think that the initial sections seem like a set up for a meatier plot, but the book ends up slice of life. I felt satisfied with the way the book ended, but I can see how someone else may be left expecting more.

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himangi's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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korio's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

4.5 stars. My feelings changed about this one several times while I was reading it. I never didn't like it, I just jumped back and forth between and three and a five repeatedly. It's multi-POV, and at first I thought my feelings were changing based on whose POV I was reading, meaning that I'd have a better idea of my overall feelings once I finished the book, but around the 200 page mark, I realized it wasn't EXACTLY that. Sort of that, but not quite.

None of the woman featured in the book is a particularly likable character, but not unlikable, either - they're all very real and relatable, but also unrelatable. That makes no sense as a sentence, but they all take their turns jumping between "I am this woman" and "I know this woman." When I was reading each woman's POV, if she wasn't echoing thoughts and experiences I felt like I've had myself, then I felt like I could say, ah, well, at least I can say I've met someone like this, or I've seen someone go through this, and none of it stretched the bounds of credulity at all. All the women were living what felt like real, average, everyday lives of women - the book is essentially plotless - but at the same time, it never felt boring or basic or I know all this, skip it.

The reason I think I jumped back and forth with how I felt about it so much was because a couple of the women I found most interesting in the first half of the book were held far back and seemed deliberately kept at arm's length - Ara and Wonna - and I wished to get a lot more from them, while we were getting quite a lot from Kyuri and Miho, who were not exactly BORING, but felt much more... I don't know, it seems almost UNKIND to say common, shallow, or basic. My feelings about both of those things definitely changed in the last third, though.

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sunny_not's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really enjoyed it, it depicts the issues that women and especially Korean women face quite well. It highlights their different experiences and different hopes which was quite interesting. However I didn't give this a higher rating since I'm not a huge fan of open endings and there were many questions left unanswered which is also not my cup of tea. Overall I would recommend this book.

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sseoryn's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i would have given it 4 stars if it weren't for the pace, the ending is somewhat satisfying, but in a way that's good bcs it gives the reader a chance to decipher their own versions of endings for each character. i would've liked to see more culture in it though, if it weren't for the characters names, occasional korean slangs i would have thought im just reading any ordinary contemporary english novel. i think it would have been a tad bit more interesting if they included ruby's pov, and maybe nami and hanbin yk? it would be really thought provoking and give a bit more insight to readers to know what goes on in a suicidal person's mind, a loving boyfriend who cheated, and a young girl who gave in early to *that* industry, personally i feel like frances wasted a lot of page count, especially on sujin? im not even sure if i got her name right, that's how much lack of background story frances gave on sujin, i couldn't get to know her as well as i knew other characters.

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jojo_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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aza_lea_3's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

It was a really good experience, the book is striking of humanity in a both uneasy and beautiful way

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megafish's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Definitely worth a read but for my tastes it was a little too slice-of-life. I enjoyed the character interactions and some of the character arcs were pretty satisfying to read through. It's not a very plot driven book overall so it drags on a little but it has some very beautiful quotes.

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