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A review by readingwithathena
If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim
4.0
3.5/5
If You Leave Me was both everything and nothing like I expected it to be- and I'm still deciding if that's a good or bad thing.
Some might be inclined to compare this to Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, but If You Leave Me is harsher and darker. If you've read Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road (or even seen the movie), I think you'd get a better feel for this novel. Hamei, Jisoo, and Kyunghwan make decisions for others, not themselves, and they end up miserable.
The protagonist, Haemi, is the most confounding part of the novel. The center of everything, you spend 400 pages watching her fall apart. At the beginning of the novel, she is fierce and rebellious, unsure of what she wants, but still sweet. She loves her baby brother, she worries about her mother, and she likes sneaking out to get drunk with her childhood friend, Kyunghwan. But then she marries his cousin, Jisoo, for stability, and things fall apart. As the book progresses, Haemi's fierceness turns into bitterness, her rebellion into cruelty, and her uncertainty into toxicity. You can either love her or hate her (a sentiment shared by almost every other character).
I like novels that are more character driven than plot driven, and this book is just that. The writing is beautiful, and the characters are extraordinarily detailed. But we probably didn't need so many perspectives (five characters narrate at least one chapter), and the book probably could have been 300 pages instead of 400. I liked this book, but I'm still unsure.
This is not a light read. It's heavy and haunting, and their misery lingers long after the book is finished.
If You Leave Me was both everything and nothing like I expected it to be- and I'm still deciding if that's a good or bad thing.
Some might be inclined to compare this to Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, but If You Leave Me is harsher and darker. If you've read Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road (or even seen the movie), I think you'd get a better feel for this novel. Hamei, Jisoo, and Kyunghwan make decisions for others, not themselves, and they end up miserable.
The protagonist, Haemi, is the most confounding part of the novel. The center of everything, you spend 400 pages watching her fall apart. At the beginning of the novel, she is fierce and rebellious, unsure of what she wants, but still sweet. She loves her baby brother, she worries about her mother, and she likes sneaking out to get drunk with her childhood friend, Kyunghwan. But then she marries his cousin, Jisoo, for stability, and things fall apart. As the book progresses, Haemi's fierceness turns into bitterness, her rebellion into cruelty, and her uncertainty into toxicity. You can either love her or hate her (a sentiment shared by almost every other character).
I like novels that are more character driven than plot driven, and this book is just that. The writing is beautiful, and the characters are extraordinarily detailed. But we probably didn't need so many perspectives (five characters narrate at least one chapter), and the book probably could have been 300 pages instead of 400. I liked this book, but I'm still unsure.
This is not a light read. It's heavy and haunting, and their misery lingers long after the book is finished.