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A review by arirang
Our Happy Time by Sora Kim-Russell, Gong Jiyoung
3.0
Not my usual type of book I have to admit, I read it because of my deep interest in korean culture and literature rather than the specific subject matter - and 공지영 is a big star in Korea - so difficult for me to compare to English equivalents.
The writing is fairly simple, and it doesn't merit my rating for it's purely literary merits.
But it certainly packs a powerful emotional punch and covers some quite deep topics - religion, redemption, rehabilitation, forgiveness, penal policy, hypocrisy etc.
And for what initially sounded a pretty cliched set-up - "suicidal girl befriends death-row prisoner via her nun aunt" - it avoids trite answers. Perhaps the only cop-out was having the prisoner, while not exactly non-guilty, responsible for less terrible crimes than those for which he was convicted: that seemed an unnecessary tool to draw the reader's, and the other characters, sympathy given that a crucial part of the book is that no one is totally evil or beyond redemption.
And Sora Kim-Russell is to be commended for a very clear and readable translation, which manages to preserve some of the sense of a Korean style.
Overall would make an excellent book club book, very moving and thought provoking but I would look elsewhere for top quality Korean literary fiction.
Incidentally a lot of the reviews refer to a manga version - the English version published this year is a proper novel so perhaps this was an earlier version / in a different language.
And why do Goodreads describe it as a debut novel? It certainly wasn't her first novel in Korean and it isn't even her first translated into English. Strikes me as a publisher trying to introduce an established but under appreciated author by hyping her up as new.
The writing is fairly simple, and it doesn't merit my rating for it's purely literary merits.
But it certainly packs a powerful emotional punch and covers some quite deep topics - religion, redemption, rehabilitation, forgiveness, penal policy, hypocrisy etc.
And for what initially sounded a pretty cliched set-up - "suicidal girl befriends death-row prisoner via her nun aunt" - it avoids trite answers. Perhaps the only cop-out was having the prisoner, while not exactly non-guilty, responsible for less terrible crimes than those for which he was convicted: that seemed an unnecessary tool to draw the reader's, and the other characters, sympathy given that a crucial part of the book is that no one is totally evil or beyond redemption.
And Sora Kim-Russell is to be commended for a very clear and readable translation, which manages to preserve some of the sense of a Korean style.
Overall would make an excellent book club book, very moving and thought provoking but I would look elsewhere for top quality Korean literary fiction.
Incidentally a lot of the reviews refer to a manga version - the English version published this year is a proper novel so perhaps this was an earlier version / in a different language.
And why do Goodreads describe it as a debut novel? It certainly wasn't her first novel in Korean and it isn't even her first translated into English. Strikes me as a publisher trying to introduce an established but under appreciated author by hyping her up as new.