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pamela1221 's review for:
Please Look After Mom
by Kyung-sook Shin
Please Look After Mom is a bit of a different read for me. I liked the book but I didn’t love it I thought the 1st and 4th POVs were extremely difficult to read. I couldn’t find any kind of rhythm to those 2 parts and therefore I found myself re-reading paragraphs. The lack of names for the younger brother and sister was confusing especially on the 4th POV.
A mother goes missing and is unable to be found, what this creates in untold guilt to her family as they begin to try and find her realizing as they look back into the past that they haven’t exactly been the most caring children and find that they have taken their mother for granted. Each POV paints a picture of just how self absorbed the family has become and only after their mother goes missing do they understand that she was and is the backbone of the family.
I am ignorant to the Korean culture on how they view their children for me I have no favorites between mine, but it seems that the mother has definite favorites with hers (is this normal in Korean culture?). I do believe she was proud of all of them but she certainly didn’t view them the same. She had expectations for each of them and made sure that the ones she expected to succeed were given every opportunity, while the others were not.
I think for me the POV that struck me the most was the realization from the father. I found it very difficult to sympathize with him, but it was his POV that was most unputdownable (sp? Possible made up word).
Even before reading this book as I witness my own mother getting older and my kids growing into adults, I find myself regretting that I haven’t gotten to know the person that is my mother, I want my kids to call their grandparents and ask for the stories of their youth? Funny stories from growing up, music they listened to. What they got up to with there friends. I also want my kids to realize that as parents we don’t consider our young adult life that far away, I wasn’t born their mother. For me this resonates throughout this book. The family do not see the mother as anything other than their mother. They have no clue who she was outside of the family and then are shocked when witnesses question them on why they can’t find her. What could be wrong that she is lost?
I don’t consider this book to have a happy ending, I consider that it is giving us a lesson on how we should treat the ones we love while they are still with us.
A mother goes missing and is unable to be found, what this creates in untold guilt to her family as they begin to try and find her realizing as they look back into the past that they haven’t exactly been the most caring children and find that they have taken their mother for granted. Each POV paints a picture of just how self absorbed the family has become and only after their mother goes missing do they understand that she was and is the backbone of the family.
I am ignorant to the Korean culture on how they view their children for me I have no favorites between mine, but it seems that the mother has definite favorites with hers (is this normal in Korean culture?). I do believe she was proud of all of them but she certainly didn’t view them the same. She had expectations for each of them and made sure that the ones she expected to succeed were given every opportunity, while the others were not.
I think for me the POV that struck me the most was the realization from the father. I found it very difficult to sympathize with him, but it was his POV that was most unputdownable (sp? Possible made up word).
Even before reading this book as I witness my own mother getting older and my kids growing into adults, I find myself regretting that I haven’t gotten to know the person that is my mother, I want my kids to call their grandparents and ask for the stories of their youth? Funny stories from growing up, music they listened to. What they got up to with there friends. I also want my kids to realize that as parents we don’t consider our young adult life that far away, I wasn’t born their mother. For me this resonates throughout this book. The family do not see the mother as anything other than their mother. They have no clue who she was outside of the family and then are shocked when witnesses question them on why they can’t find her. What could be wrong that she is lost?
I don’t consider this book to have a happy ending, I consider that it is giving us a lesson on how we should treat the ones we love while they are still with us.