A few years ago I read an entire book before realizing I had already read it. I looked back at my Goodreads read list and realized I had no memory of about half of the books on there. So I built a new habit – (almost) every time I finish a book, I word-vomit my thoughts and emotions into a note on my phone. Sometimes they’re brief, sometimes they’re long-longwinded, sometimes they just ramble…and now I’m putting them here. Please enjoy the madness.
SPOILERS AHEAD…
This book was heartbreaking. It was interesting for me to learn about the historic relationship between the Japanese and Korean people, something I had no knowledge of before. I thought the way they addressed cultural differences was beautifully done. It resonated when the grandson brought his girlfriend from America to Japan with him and basically all the typically American things about her that made her bright and exciting when they were in school just made her too much in the backdrop of his home country. The story very gracefully navigates the shifting times as the story moves through the generations, showing how each one fits into each time period in slightly different ways and how the lives of family members can be different but still threaded together. I also enjoyed the way they played the siblings off of one another, two brothers who are so different and on such different paths but who end up with similar lives, one that affected them in dramatically different ways.
Full disclosure – this was a book club pick.