Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Please Look After Mother

Gosh, this book was difficult for me. Reminded me of The Giving Tree. My mother loved that book because of the Christian symbolism, but I suspect it was also because she identified with the tree. She read this book as well and asked me to read it too. I’d forgotten about that until today. Now I wish I’d read it while she was alive, while she was reading it too, so we could’ve discussed it together. Thus, this book was hard to read because it made me pine for my mother who was similarly a long-suffering saint like the book's mother and wife. And it’s compounding my grief, the grief that is ever present. I feel like this mother character could be any Korean mother. I think that’s a key reason for the book’s success.

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sunshine_sideup's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.75

Insightful in terms of Motherhood and sacrifices made by mothers and women that go unseen. Revolves around the idea of kin-keeping. It was an eye-opening read regarding familial relationships and loss. Each chapter is from the perspective of a different family member, helps you feel connected to the plot.

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juksu's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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

4.25

While reading (listening to) this book, my most common emotion was devastation. Quite a few tears, some of joy, but most of profound grief for every mother and every child who's lived this life, including my own relatives. Perhaps because I am very close with my mother, this book hit me really hard. In discussing this book with me, my mom told me So-nyo sounds like her own grandmothers, who immigrated from Korea to Japan. Both women, long gone, are complete strangers to my mother not just because of their low Japanese fluency, but because in their families, they weren't people. They were mothers, defined by sacrifice and silence. Unbreakable and invisible.

From a less personal standpoint, I feel like this was also just a good book. Each of the individual voices was distinct (and not just because each had a separate reader!), and the translation is great. I think it provided some very thought-provoking commentary on this sort of sacrificial motherhood. Within the role of mother that she has been forced to inhabit, So-nyo does indeed love her children, however she chooses—or is forced to—show it. (Children of Asian parents whose love language is acts of service, please stand up.) Some people say they're unsatisfied with the ending, but I feel like any other ending would subvert the entire point of the novel. Which apparently was to wreck me emotionally.

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parasolcrafter's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

this book made me. so sad...

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jeanniea'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? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

truly encapsulates the korean culture surrounding family dynamics. was brought to tears various times thruout the book. i couldn’t help but reflect ipon my own life and my own mother. the writing was beautiful. am curious to read it in korean to pick up different nuances. might’ve rated it lower for several reasons, but gave it a 5 for speaking to me on a personal level.

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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.

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