Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Grass

Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

corky12's review

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dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

2.5

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poemsandponds's review

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

This book was devastating. Not sure how else to describe it beyond that. The story of this woman is overall well told and heartbreaking. It pulls no punches in telling the horrors that “comfort women” aka girls sold into sex slavery, endured during the Japanese occupation of Korea. It was hard to read. And yet I couldn’t look away. I found myself wanting to know her story. The truth is I came away knowing much more than I had going in about the occupation and that it was so much worse than I had thought. The brutality is unbearable to witness, and yet people lived it. As a whole, I think it shows that no matter what side of the world, what period on time, the atrocities of war, colonization, and oppression bring out the darkest sides of human nature. I came away feeling amazed that people survive these things and continue on. It brought out a sense of compassion that said, you really don’t know what other people have been through, so carry that thought in mind whenever you meet someone.

Side topic: To comment on the author inserting needle fin the narrative, I wasn’t a fan. It just took me out of the story. I like the idea of flashing backwards and forwards in time in stories like these, however, I think those flashbacks should be solely focused on the teller of the story, not the journalist wiring it down. The journalist was too detached for it to have a real impact on the delivery of the story, but somehow her thought, feelings, and etc, were part of it? I like hearing the author’s pov when they have a very personal connection to the story, such as Thi Biu in the Best We Could Do. She’s telling her parent’s refugee story and giving parts of her life, thoughts, feelings, but you care because she’s their daughter. I didn’t care about a random journalist’s thoughts, and the thoughts given weren’t even insightful or emotionally impactful. They could’ve been removed with no harm to the book. It would have been a lot more interesting if the author would have made a section in the back of the book dedicated just to their research process and how they developed the book. If they talked about the emotions that came up whole writing and interviewing, why they wrote this book, etc it would have been so much more interesting. I guess I learned that I don’t like researchers inserting themselves in the memoir narrative when they don’t have much to say.

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archivofrances's review against another edition

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informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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crm00's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

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julia20y3's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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juliavra's review

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emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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jhbandcats's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Wow. What a powerful story with such strong artwork. The illustrations feel oppressive, obviously since Lee Ok-Sun was oppressed through most of her life.

The author / illustrator, Keum Duk Gendry-Kim, met and interviewed Lee. They became friends of a sort, with Gendry-Kim working for three years to complete her biography. It begins when Lee was a child, sold by her parents to alleviate their poverty. From there things got progressively worse with her being abducted and sent to a “comfort station” at the age of 16 or 17.

Things were almost as bad after the war. The newly liberated women were shunned as whores, unable to find food or work. Lee told Gendry-Kim that her life was miserable from the moment she was born, and that’s all too clear.

Gendry-Kim tells Lee’s story in a straightforward fashion without sensationalizing the violence and misery. I confess I can’t conceive of this level of pain and anguish.

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

grass is a powerful, harrowing bio graphic novel abt korean comfort women in an unjustly less known chapter in ww 2 history. i expected this to be a difficult read but was nevertheless unprepared for how hard it hit me.

the graphic novel follows the life of one particular comfort woman, lee oksun, and from the get-go i was frustrated and angry reading abt the gender inequality experienced by lee since childhood. it's a tale older than time, yet it never ceases to be infuriating. there's a lot of triggering content here - unsurprising for a book mostly abt sexual slavery during wartime - but i was also particularly affected to tears by the story of seo mija, which was hard-hitting.

gendry-kim does justice to lee through her art and storytelling. despite the abundant violence and triggering content present, nothing feels gratuitous, w/ gendry-kim handling them all w/ care and detached objectivity. the brushstrokes and inkwork also masterfully convey both the external physical landscape of china and korea, and the internal situation of her subject.

this graphic novel tells an important story that deserves to be more known - esp as the injustice surrounding comfort women and japan's denialism still persisting - and gendry-kim does a lauded job of doing justice to the story.

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