rosehock93's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Physical abuse
dienlv's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Rape, Injury/injury detail, Torture, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent
worlds_between_the_sheets's review against another edition
5.0
Vuosi 1943. Hana ja Emi ovat sisaruksia ja haenyeo-sukeltajanaisia Jejun saarella, Japanin miehittämässä Koreassa. Eräällä sukellusreissulla Hana huomaa japanilaisen sotilaan lähestyvän rannalla odottavaa pikkusiskoa ja juoksee kiinnittämään miehen huomion suojallakseen häntä. Hana pelastaa Emin, mutta joutuu itse siepatuksi ja seksiorjaksi japanilaisten sotilaiden bordelliin. Kirja kertoo niin Hanan tarinan kuin Emin elämästä syyllisyyden ja sodan traumojen kanssa. Selviytymistä voi olla vaikea antaa anteeksi itselleen.
Luin vuosi sitten Lisa Seen The Island of Sea Women, joka kertoi myös matriarkkaalisen Jejun sukeltajanaisista, jotka elättävät perheensä. Tuo kulttuuri oli mun mielestä ihan supermielenkiintoinen ja tartuin heti innolla tähän toiseen kirjaan. Ymmärsin toki, että bordelli ja seksiorjuus tuo erilaista synkkyyttä tarinaan, mutta en ollut silti varautunut tähän. Kohtaukset oli kuin isku palleaan ja hetki piti haukkoa happea ja itkeä ennen lukemisen jatkamista.
Arviolta 50 000-200 000 korealaista tyttöä ja naista varastettiin, myytiin ja huijattiin japanilaisten sotilaiden seksiorjiksi Korean miehityksen aikana. Selviytyjät joutuivat elämään häpeässä ilman minkäänlaista apua loppuelämänsä, sillä Koreassa naisten koskemattomuus oli pyhää. Eikä Japani ole vieläkään kunnolla myöntänyt ja kohdannut tekemäänsä.
Luin vuosi sitten Lisa Seen The Island of Sea Women, joka kertoi myös matriarkkaalisen Jejun sukeltajanaisista, jotka elättävät perheensä. Tuo kulttuuri oli mun mielestä ihan supermielenkiintoinen ja tartuin heti innolla tähän toiseen kirjaan. Ymmärsin toki, että bordelli ja seksiorjuus tuo erilaista synkkyyttä tarinaan, mutta en ollut silti varautunut tähän. Kohtaukset oli kuin isku palleaan ja hetki piti haukkoa happea ja itkeä ennen lukemisen jatkamista.
Arviolta 50 000-200 000 korealaista tyttöä ja naista varastettiin, myytiin ja huijattiin japanilaisten sotilaiden seksiorjiksi Korean miehityksen aikana. Selviytyjät joutuivat elämään häpeässä ilman minkäänlaista apua loppuelämänsä, sillä Koreassa naisten koskemattomuus oli pyhää. Eikä Japani ole vieläkään kunnolla myöntänyt ja kohdannut tekemäänsä.
abunger22's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
tikkinaylor's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
novel_luck's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
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
5.0
jokween's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
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? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Rape, and War
ufcasey's review against another edition
3.0
This book was a fictional tale about an important real-life historical topic, so I really wanted to love this book, but I only ended up sort of liking it. When a book tackles such a horrifying time in history-when Korean women were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military as 'comfort women'-it's hard to balance the need for both captivating storytelling and historical accuracy.
I personally really struggled to emotionally connect with this book despite it's desperately upsetting subject: a teenage girl (Hana) who willingly gets captured in order to save her much younger sister (Emi) from the same fate. I think my lack of emotional connection is mainly because the author chose to write this story in a third person narrative instead of first person, so there was already this built-in distance between the reader and the characters. I'm usually not one to even notice things like that! But when reading a scene that involves something terrible happening, which of these sentences do you feel more connected to:
"I closed my eyes and held my breath"
or
"She closed her eyes and held her breath"?
See what I mean (pun unintended)? The whole time I felt like I was reading a story, I was never really IN the story. And with a subject like this, I truly think it does a disservice to distance the reader from the horrors that were happening.
But beyond that, I also just felt like the book in some ways just kind of quickly moved past the whole sexual-slavery part. For something that was a pretty central point to the whole book, Hana doesn't actually spend that much page time dealing with it. We're just told at one point that she has been there for 80-something days and then she is suddenly no longer in that specific situation. And that itself was a weird ending to her story - I don't want to get into spoilers for that, but let's just say it never made sense and it was never fully explained, Morimoto was just a cartoonishly evil character with a backstory that made no sense and neither did most of his actions. Meanwhile, Emi's story felt like the absolute filler it mostly was. Her daughter felt like a full character but her son just seemed cold and distant and Emi herself hid her entire (not that interesting comparative to Hana) past for seemingly no real reason. Also, the cause of her was never explained either.
So why did I rate this 3 'I liked it' stars? Because I do feel like this book shined a light on a subject most people (including myself) don't know much about. And it was relatively well written. And I did find myself enjoying the tension/uncertainty of Hana's situation at the end of the book, even though that part came out of left field.
I have not read the other book released just this year about the same subject/timeframe [b:The Island of Sea Women|40538657|The Island of Sea Women|Lisa See|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1549839392s/40538657.jpg|62803411], but I am curious as to how it would stack up against this one.
I personally really struggled to emotionally connect with this book despite it's desperately upsetting subject: a teenage girl (Hana) who willingly gets captured in order to save her much younger sister (Emi) from the same fate. I think my lack of emotional connection is mainly because the author chose to write this story in a third person narrative instead of first person, so there was already this built-in distance between the reader and the characters. I'm usually not one to even notice things like that! But when reading a scene that involves something terrible happening, which of these sentences do you feel more connected to:
"I closed my eyes and held my breath"
or
"She closed her eyes and held her breath"?
See what I mean (pun unintended)? The whole time I felt like I was reading a story, I was never really IN the story. And with a subject like this, I truly think it does a disservice to distance the reader from the horrors that were happening.
But beyond that, I also just felt like the book in some ways just kind of quickly moved past the whole sexual-slavery part. For something that was a pretty central point to the whole book, Hana doesn't actually spend that much page time dealing with it. We're just told at one point that she has been there for 80-something days and then she is suddenly no longer in that specific situation. And that itself was a weird ending to her story - I don't want to get into spoilers for that, but let's just say it never made sense and it was never fully explained, Morimoto was just a cartoonishly evil character with a backstory that made no sense and neither did most of his actions
Spoiler
Why would you send your wife and child to America if you were fighting Americans? Why was he obsessed with Hana? At one point he seemed to be a man in charge but then later he was just a guard and then even later was either a spy or a smuggler but that was never explained either.Spoiler
one limping legSo why did I rate this 3 'I liked it' stars? Because I do feel like this book shined a light on a subject most people (including myself) don't know much about. And it was relatively well written. And I did find myself enjoying the tension/uncertainty of Hana's situation at the end of the book, even though that part came out of left field.
I have not read the other book released just this year about the same subject/timeframe [b:The Island of Sea Women|40538657|The Island of Sea Women|Lisa See|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1549839392s/40538657.jpg|62803411], but I am curious as to how it would stack up against this one.