Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Please Look After Mother

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Please Look After Mother by Kyung-sook Shin

4 reviews

sofiadanielle's review

emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Ouch. This book hurt so much. Emotional and sad, moving me towards certain emotions despite my own personal feelings/family dynamic/etc.

So many passages felt like a punch to the gut; realizations and parallels from real life being drawn in… So moving.

Though I’ve struggled to really phrase how this book moved me, I hope it’s conveyed just how powerful it was.

Content Warnings

ash445's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

I found this book so interesting! If I had to describe what it's about, I'd say that it's about losing things/people and how often you lose something/one before you actually physically lose it/them and also about the roles that women play as mothers. I loved how the pov shifted with different chapters including moving from second person to third person. I had been viewing the role women take as mothers negatively throughout the book, and I was delighted that Shin Kyungsook explicitly challenged that near the end. I think it will be a deeply relatable read for anyone who has a complicated relationship with their mother or with motherhood.

Shin Kyungsook is a really interesting storyteller. I think there's a lot of deep stuff going on that I can't see due to my limitations as a reader. It's really cool to be able to feel it even though I can't see it :)

Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Child abuse, Death, and Dementia

Minor: Animal death, Miscarriage, War, and Suicide

Suicide:

Park Sonyo's brother-in-law dies by suicide. They were close and she's accused of murdering him. The suicide itself is not explained in detail and is also not explicitly named for what it is

Infidelity:

Park Sonyo's husband cheats on her, and she temporarily leaves the home while the woman he is cheating on her with is living there. This woman tries to take on the role of mother with the kids, and the eldest son rejects her efforts. Her husband and the woman end up leaving and traveling together for some time, and the husband eventually returns. Park Sonyo may have technically cheated on her husband? This is unclear. There is a man she spends a great deal of time with and seems to think she might have viewed him romantically

Child Abuse:

This may be a controversial tag. I think the child abuse is expected for the time period. I personally consider very seriously yelling at kids, guilting them with your potential death, and hitting them all as abuse. The kids are hit with switches, sometimes until they bleed, in situations when their actions are deemed severe by the mother. One of the daughters is also berated fairly extremely for what I felt was an age appropriate, though admittedly extreme, action. It is clear also imo that these actions come from a place of parents not knowing any different.

Animal Death: it's a farming family, so there's some mention of butchering animals but not in detail, and there's a slightly more detailed description of a dog passing away Chronic Illness/Dementia:

I'm not totally sure about whether Park Sonyo has dementia as it's only her symptoms that are described. She has memory loss, confusion, intense headaches/migraines regularly. These incapacitate her. She describes the pain from her headaches in detail. She also at one point has breast cancer that is neglected until it becomes physically visible on her breast

Miscarriage:

One of Park Sonyo's pregnancy results in a stillbirth, and she buries the baby herself. This isn't described in great detail I don't think and also makes her concerned for her following pregnancy

The parents lived through the Korean War and there is description of some of their experiences but this is largely devoid of explicit violence against the parents. The impacts of the war are felt throughout their lives.

Park Sonyo is spotted after her disappearance with a cut on her foot caused by her sandal digging in. At one point, this is describe in some detail that I personally found a little difficult to hear because it was infected.

Death of Parent/Death:

Park Sonyo does pass away. The family never finds her so they don't have explicit confirmation of this. Part of the story follows Park Sonyo after death viewing her youngest daughter and her home. The details of her death are not explained in detail

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

It's quite difficult to sum up my mix of emotions towards this book. On one hand, I do think the summary put my hopes up too high, while on the other the book also succeeds exactly what it sets out to do.

Please Look After Mother's simplicity is, in my opinion, its biggest weakness and strength. The story moves along at a leisurely pace w/o any real sense of urgency, and any semblance of excitement is tempered by the fact that the majority of the story happens in the past and ultimately doesn't alter the ultimate outcome of So-nyo's disappearance. This simplicity, however, also underlines the glaringly obvious yet simultaneously unseen and unacknowledged presence and 'being-ness' of mothers, which makes the book's message so searing and searingly frightening.

While the book could certainly have been at least a little more complex or exciting, it still results in altered tangible real life behavior on my part, which might be what matters most.

Content Warnings

marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

Please Look After Mom is a heartbreaking book. It follows a Korean family as they look for their mother, who went missing at the subway station during a trip to Seoul. Her two daughters, eldest son, and husband recount their memories with her, leaping between past and present—grieving, regretting, hoping. Kyung-sook Shin’s title character also narrates her journey, the unacknowledged Passion of a poor, illiterate Korean country woman with secrets and sorrows, attending to the smallest details with great care. This book reminds readers that every person is a whole, complex human being who deserves care and respect—even your mom.

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