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A review by fasmina
The Picture Bride by Lee Geum-yi
4.0
Three women, three completely different women crossing seas and getting married and living three different lives is the best summary of this book. How the women meet, separate and again have their lives tangled throughout is the beauty of this book.
Told in the perspective of Willow, who along with her two friends from the same part of Korea, goes to Hawai’i as picture brides. Picture brides are those who exchange photos between the bride and the groom and cross counties to meet their husband. How their find their husbands to be, whether they fulfilled their own dreams and how they survived makes up the book.
Since it’s set in the early 1900s, we witness the life in Korea and Hawai’i and the different struggles they had to face as migrants. The emotional and mental trauma that each picture bride goes through is heartbreaking. The last part of the book was unexpected and I was left shocked.
Since it’s a translation, the narration was a bit confusing, where the timeline jumped from one place to another and back to the same place in the same page, without any warning. Also, the last revelation is something that needed more and I would have loved to read more about it!
Many of the political aspects were a bit confusing for me because Emmy complete focus was on the women. Nevertheless, it’s a totally engaging story which centred around women who wanted to have the best for themselves but eventually sacrificed everything.
Told in the perspective of Willow, who along with her two friends from the same part of Korea, goes to Hawai’i as picture brides. Picture brides are those who exchange photos between the bride and the groom and cross counties to meet their husband. How their find their husbands to be, whether they fulfilled their own dreams and how they survived makes up the book.
Since it’s set in the early 1900s, we witness the life in Korea and Hawai’i and the different struggles they had to face as migrants. The emotional and mental trauma that each picture bride goes through is heartbreaking. The last part of the book was unexpected and I was left shocked.
Since it’s a translation, the narration was a bit confusing, where the timeline jumped from one place to another and back to the same place in the same page, without any warning. Also, the last revelation is something that needed more and I would have loved to read more about it!
Many of the political aspects were a bit confusing for me because Emmy complete focus was on the women. Nevertheless, it’s a totally engaging story which centred around women who wanted to have the best for themselves but eventually sacrificed everything.