Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Bản Chất Của Người

This is incredibly tragic, especially since it is based on a lot of true events from the Gwanju Uprising. The mix of narration (different people, different point of view format) was really engaging and steered the story in a very unique way. A very important read, but proceed with caution.

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boomwormbrittany's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Trigger Warnings: Death, Death of a child, sexual assault, physical violence
I want to say that I will be basing this book purely off how it made me feel and how the story was told. I am not a Korean historian and thus cannot speak on the historical context of this story though I am sure that Han Kang did a fantastic job.
Human Acts takes place in Gwangju, South Korea in the 1980's during a student uprising. This story follows many people after a young boy is killed in the uprising and the impact it has upon them.
Have you ever had a book emotionally devastate you and you fall completely in love with it? That is me with this book. I have been studying Korean for about four years now and wanted to expand my knowledge of Korean history. I had heard fantastic things about this book and knew I had to pick it up. I will admit that I was a little scared going into this as it is such a heavy topic we are following.
I don't know what to say beyond throwing this book at people and screaming read it. This book was so amazing in such a short page count. Han Kang's writing was astoundingly beautiful. I love how she told this story and the way she used narrative. She would switch narrative positions with each person we followed so you would have first person, second person, third person, etc. Each chapter was structured differently according to the character which made them so distinct.
She managed to capture not only a time of people's lives but also the after effect of what happened. She was able to show that the scars the characters carried didn't end when the violence ended, it continued on for the rest of their lives which I really appreciated. I was absolutely blown away by this book and how Han Kang seemed to perfectly know her characters and the story she was telling. This had a lot of philosophical questions about death and life and how we treat our dead. It was so interesting to read.
Han Kang did a fantastic job of showing the emotions people felt during this uprising. There was fear and anger and so many different emotions piled on top of each other. There was layers to this tragedy and I think she did an amazing job showing how it affected the characters and the greater community that went through this horrific event.
Honestly, I could gush about this book forever but I don't want to spoil it. Just know that this book is a fantastic look into how tragedy and trauma lives on inside of us even when its over. This was such an interesting read and I will be educating myself more on the uprising that happened. Definitely read this book.

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bibliocharylodis's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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