A review by thevalleyslily
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo

4.0

I expected a more conventional (?) storytelling but this felt more like a report. Usually, the detached, stone-cold tone of the writing (that we understand the reason for later in the book) would be a turn off but I believe it worked well here. It's not fiction, it's reality with hard facts and Ji-young's life is a case study. Something about the emotional distance with which everything was recounted made it even more hard hitting and irrefutable. The further we went the bleaker and more suffocating the perspective got for Ji-young. The last line, knowing from who it came, was especially depressing and like another review said I wanted to set something on fire. There is still a long long way to go and so much more to be done.