A review by pepper1133
Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story by William Andrews

4.0

I had heard of the Korean comfort women of WWII once before, but very briefly and from that introduction I had imagined their circumstances to be something along the lines of Kim’s in “Miss Saigon.” I was very much mistaken. The comfort women were more sex slaves, forced by the occupying Japanese to be raped over and over again by their military. The sections of the book at the comfort station are not easy to read, and there was a moment where the book could have delved into torture porn. Thankfully the author pulled back at that point but god, those descriptions create a very visceral experience of a little talked about historical fact. The parts of the book dealing with the dragon comb are somewhat contrived; as a reader I would have been fine with sticking to the story of how Ja-hee and the other comfort women survived their post-war lives. Lastly, I have to address my discomfort with the story being written by a white American male. Clearly Andrews has done his research, and clearly he has so much respect for the comfort women. But it’s not his history and so to a certain extent it is exploitive. I wonder why there aren’t more/any books about the comfort that are published by mainstream printing houses. I had to search a bit to find this book on the subject from an independent press. The use of rape as an instrument of war needs to be talked about more, in all of its forms.

*read for The 52nd Book Club Challenge, #28--Includes a historical event you know little about--Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews*