The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung

February 26, 2026

The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung

Korea 1950. Ellie Chang is an American reporter covering the recently begun Korean War, sent by her newspaper because she speaks both Japanese and Mandarin. As one of the few women journalists in Korea, she struggles to be included in press and military briefings. To get a story on the UN evacuation, she hitches a ride with an American pilot heading to the front lines in North Korea to pick up a load of wounded soldiers. On the way back to the American base, their plane is shot down by the Korean military. Mistaking Ellie for Chinese, they are about to shoot her when an unknown Korean woman intervenes and persuades them to let her take Ellie away, claiming that Ellie is her long-missing daughter.

I don't know about where you went to school, but the Korean War was largely skipped over in the U.S. history courses that I took. I think most of what Americans know about this war came from the TV series MASH. Like most wars, the people making the decisions didn't have to live with the consequences, like bombing North Korea for 90 days straight. Nothing is black and white in this story. Even among those that are supposed to be the enemy, Ellie finds kindness and help. If you enjoy historical fiction but are tired of reading about the world wars and the Holocaust, this is a different take on a different war. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Pyongyang, capital of North Korea, after UN forces fire bombed the city 

Excavations by Hannah Michell

July 18,. 2023

Excavations by Hannah Michell

After a day spent looking after her children, Sae is looking forward to her husband Jae coming home from his job with a small engineering firm subcontracted to do work for a major Seoul corporation. But then there is a news report that the building where Jae is working has collapsed and hundreds of people are trapped or dead. Sae goes in search of her husband, but as the days pass with no sign of him, Sae begins to uncover more and more deception, eroding away at what she believed was their life.

I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I expected to when I started it. There are different types of excavations going on: the building site, unethical business practices at the corporate level, a karaoke salon where businessmen gather and spill their secrets, Jae's hidden past, what Sae thought was their life together. You can feel Sae's growing desperation as the days pass and she is unable to get answers about what happened to her husband. Thoughtful contemporary fiction.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Seoul, Korea

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

October 21, 2021

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

Modern Korea is a world of impossibly high beauty standards - the closer you conform to the standards, the more likely you are to get a good job, a successful husband, a nicer apartment. Four young women try to navigate the waters of work, beauty, K-POP, and marriage in 21st century Seoul.

One works as a hostess at an exclusive gentlemen's club; she has had plenty of plastic surgery already and is constantly having her face tweaked so that she can keep her job. But she makes a serious mistake when she runs into a regular client at an expensive restaurant. Another is an artist who received a scholarship to study in New York, but struggles when she returns home. She becomes involved in the shady dealings of a wealthy client. The third woman is a hair stylist who is mute; she is a wonderful stylist but she is treated poorly because of her disability, and she spends a lot of time worrying about her roommate, an ordinary looking girl who is obsessed with a K-POP group and is saving up to have extensive plastic surgery on her face. The fourth woman is a newlywed who wants to have a baby, but she and her husband have ordinary jobs and they have no idea how they will be able to afford to raise a child in super-expensive Seoul.

Before I read this book, I had only a vague idea about beauty standards in Korea and the pressure to fit into a single look. I knew that women in Korea are crazy for beauty products from a blog that I follow - the blog's author has a friend who travels to Korea frequently for work and brings back beauty products to try. Even though I'm not Asian, I actually fit the Korean beauty standard pretty well (fair skin, oval face, small high nose, large eyes, visible eyelids) - I knew there had to be some place I fit in!

But there are too many stories, too many characters, and too many important topics here - the author should have picked one or two and saved the others for another book. The woman who works at the gentlemen's club is the only one with a real storyline. While the other three girls are involved in the Korean beauty world, the married woman's life has a totally different direction that is nothing to do with the beauty industry and doesn't have anything to do with them, other than she lives in the same apartment building as two of them.

This is how rigid the beauty standard is in Korea

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

January 13, 2020

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

On the island of Jeju off the coast of Korea, famous for its haenyeo (women divers), the women support their families with their diving, while their husbands keep house and raise the children.  Because women earn more money than men, daughters are more valued than sons.  Two girls from widely different backgrounds become friends, divers, and rivals. 

I started off by listening to this but I disliked the narrator’s style – she fluctuated between totally flat and the edge of hysteria.  Once I got the print book, the story moved along much faster.

I have read many of Lisa See's previous titles, and this one is very well researched but more violent than her other books – Young-sook and Mi-ja and their families lived through violent and oppressive times.  I admit that I skimmed over some of the more brutal passages.  There are lots of legends, customs, stories, and information about the haenyeo and diving.  See explains at one point why the women become divers to support their families (women’s earnings are taxed at a lower rate than men’s wages).  A glossary of terms would have helped since I’m not sure what some of the items were.  Except for the level of violence, this would be a good choice for a book discussion group.

Readers who are interested in reading about the Korean women divers may also like White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht, which tells the story of two sisters who are separated when one is kidnapped by the Japanese.  If you’re looking for a very good novel about life in Korea during the Japanese occupation, try Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.