쇼코의 미소

A collection of short stories, written in crisp prose, delves into the intricacies of female relationships and emotions. Global in scope and featuring many political themes, these short stories portray Korean women engaging with other women, both Korean and not, across diverse cultural and sociopolitical backdrops. Their relationships embody complexity, marked by trouble, jealousy, frustration, anger, yet also moments of joy and the bond of sisterhood forged through shared experiences. What struck me most was the characters' struggle to articulate their emotions and the sometimes vague and inconclusive endings to the stories, mirroring the complexities of real-life relationships. The author did a great job of capturing the messy reality of relationships, which was the book's strongest aspect in my opinion. However, I found the prose occasionally too crisp (to the point of being dry!) and thought some of the stories blended together a bit in tone, due to the fact many of them had flashbacks to the past with a nostalgic and melancholy mood.

I discovered parts of Korean history that were new to me while reading this book, and I really appreciated the chance to learn something new. However, the wide range of topics and events covered made it a difficult read purely due to the range of vocabulary used. The stories also become progressively more serious in tone and subject-matter as the book goes on, which meant the book also became progressively harder to read. Therefore, it wasn’t the best book for language learning, although it was great for reflecting and considering the relationships I have in my own life.