Twitter summary: The familial story about four generations of Koreans living in Japan.
The good: Even though this book is fiction, I learned a great deal about the tense relationship between Korea and Japan; I was fascinated. I was immediately drawn to the characters of Sunja and Kunghee — I felt as though I could relate, or at the very least, know aspects of them in my own life. Lee beautifully weaves in the four generations yet still mainly focuses on Sunja’s story. The last chapter is perfectly satisfying.
The bad: I didn’t have a care for the last quarter of the book, which mainly focused on Solomon’s story (the last generation). Hana’s character made me roll my eyes countless times and I kept waiting for the narrative to return to Sunja (spoiler: it did).
Recommendation: Yes as long as you promise to finish reading the book because the last chapter is satisfying.
amongthecrowd reads 