A review by serendipitysbooks
The Picture Bride by Lee Geum-yi

emotional informative reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

 The Picture Bride is the story of Willow and two of her friends who in in the early twentieth century sail from Korea to Hawaii to marry Korean men whom they have never met. Proposals were made and accepted solely on photographs, which were not always to be relied upon. It’s a story that covers all the expected details of the women’s lives in Hawaii, lives that didn’t necessarily live up to the expectations they had, but also traverses the history of Korea’s struggle for independence from Japan, particularly the role of Koreans living outside the country. While I was interested in the concept of picture brides and their experiences, I didn’t connect emotionally with the characters. I’m not sure if that was because this was a work in translation, and sometimes things do get lost in translation, or because the political details took me out of the women’s stories. The structure of the book may have also been an issue. The last fifty pages or so involved a big jump forward in time, a shift in narrative perspective, and the revelation of a big family secret. It just didn’t feel well integrated with the book as a whole. The premise was promising but I wasn’t able to sink into this one as much as I’d hoped. 
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