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A review by luminous
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo
4.0
This is weird because I thought I wrote this review days ago.
Good book if you're newer to feminism and women's issues and the problems they face. Also shines a light specifically on South Korea's equality growing pains as it seems to be lagging behind its economic peers in that realm.
This book will make you angry. It's a "wake up" book. I have rarely seen a book that talks about the hesitance towards pregnancy and birthing a child so starkly, in terms of how the thought of growing a future person inside you can bring squicky feelings and distaste at the thought of one's body being taken over in that way.
The way Jiyoung's thoughts and feelings are summarily dismissed, at every turn, by woman and man alike, at every stage of her life, is...distressingly familiar. For a woman, it is all so distressingly familiar.
The writing is dry, and the conceit doesn't excuse it, in my eyes. It may be an issue in translation, but I find all South Korean fiction to be dry and distant. I'm getting used to it, and maybe the works I've read all call for that dryness (e.g. The Hole is horror narrated by a jerk and Convenience Store Woman's protagonist is neurodivergent), but it's taking some getting used to. In this book, it puts up a wall between the reader and Jiyoung, and again, maybe there's brilliance in that. Maybe it's to force the reader to feel less empathetic towards her and realize they're being a bit like all the people in the story who impress their misogyny upon her.
I'm going to rate it 3 stars because, in spite of the dryness (and I wish the conceit was a framing device instead of a spoiler) the book is sticking with me. And I recommend it to anyone who is into modern Korean literature or feminist issues.
Good book if you're newer to feminism and women's issues and the problems they face. Also shines a light specifically on South Korea's equality growing pains as it seems to be lagging behind its economic peers in that realm.
This book will make you angry. It's a "wake up" book. I have rarely seen a book that talks about the hesitance towards pregnancy and birthing a child so starkly, in terms of how the thought of growing a future person inside you can bring squicky feelings and distaste at the thought of one's body being taken over in that way.
The way Jiyoung's thoughts and feelings are summarily dismissed, at every turn, by woman and man alike, at every stage of her life, is...distressingly familiar. For a woman, it is all so distressingly familiar.
The writing is dry, and the conceit doesn't excuse it, in my eyes. It may be an issue in translation, but I find all South Korean fiction to be dry and distant. I'm getting used to it, and maybe the works I've read all call for that dryness (e.g. The Hole is horror narrated by a jerk and Convenience Store Woman's protagonist is neurodivergent), but it's taking some getting used to. In this book, it puts up a wall between the reader and Jiyoung, and again, maybe there's brilliance in that. Maybe it's to force the reader to feel less empathetic towards her and realize they're being a bit like all the people in the story who impress their misogyny upon her.
I'm going to rate it 3 stars because, in spite of the dryness (and I wish the conceit was a framing device instead of a spoiler) the book is sticking with me. And I recommend it to anyone who is into modern Korean literature or feminist issues.