Can't I Go Instead
May 2023 · Forge Books
3.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
320
Pages
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About this ebook
Two women's lives and identities are intertwined—through World War II and the Korean War—revealing the harsh realities of class division in the early part of the 20th century.
“Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories.”
—Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Can't I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress's place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army.
Years of hardship, survival, and even happiness follows. In the aftermath of WWII, the women make their way home, where they must reckon with the tangled lives they've led, in an attempt to reclaim their identities, and find their place in an independent Korea.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
“Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories.”
—Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Can't I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress's place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army.
Years of hardship, survival, and even happiness follows. In the aftermath of WWII, the women make their way home, where they must reckon with the tangled lives they've led, in an attempt to reclaim their identities, and find their place in an independent Korea.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Ratings and reviews
3.0
1 review
Harsimran Brar
- Flag inappropriate
April 2, 2024
The story is rather interesting, but the book fails to live up to expectations due to two glaring issues. The first being numerous gramtical/editorial errors. Some sentences are unclear because key words are missing from the sentence, while in other instances duplicate words appear in series. These errors muddy the reading experience by breaking immersion. The second being that time is not well defined. Timeline ambiguity makes this particular book confusing, as the novel has two intertwined stories running in parallel. It's hard to keep track of how much time had passed between major events and plot points. If you are willing to regularly reread a few pages to parse what is happening, this book is worth a read.
About the author
LEE GEUM-YI was born in 1962, in her grandmother's house in the small, mountainous village of Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea. She became enthralled with the charms of storytelling early on, having spent her childhood under the influence of her grandmother's bedtime stories. Since then, Lee has published more than fifty books in South Korea, and her work has been translated around the world, including The Picture Bride, her first novel to be published in English. Beloved by readers and literary critics alike, many of her books have been adapted into TV series, musicals, and webtoons. Lee Geum-yi lives in Seoul, South Korea, with her husband, son, and her old rescue dog, Lulu.
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