Review: You Should Have Known (by Jean Hanff Korelitz)

My Rating: 3 stars

I decided to take a little bit of a detour from the ARCs and library books that I’ve been reading to squeeze in this buddy read with one of my good friends.  She was interested in reading this because she had heard that the book would be the basis for an upcoming HBO mini-series adaptation starring Nicole Kidman -- who is one of her favorite actresses -- and being the “informed watcher” that my friend is, she wanted to understand the backstory first so that she will be prepared when the series actually comes out (I’m actually the exact same way when it comes to TV series and movies, which is one reason why we’re such good friends, lol). 

This is a novel that actually came out back in 2014 -- the story revolves around Grace Reinhart Sachs, a marriage therapist in New York City who seems to have the perfect life, with a smart and handsome husband (Jonathan) who is a respected doctor at one of the city’s biggest medical establishments and a teenage son (Henry) who is musically gifted, intelligent, and is a model student.  In addition to living among the upper echelons of New York high society, Grace also has a forthcoming book that is the culmination of her career experience and quite possibly could make her one of the most sought after therapists in the city.   One day, when tragedy strikes the family of a boy at her son’s school and Grace’s husband coincidentally goes missing around the same time, the perfect life that Grace had built for herself threatens to unravel right before her eyes.  But the physical turmoil that she goes through pales in comparisons to the turmoil in her mind and in her heart, and soon, the question becomes whether she will be able to maintain her sanity and rebuild her life.

My first reaction after reading this book is that, at 400+ pages, it was way longer than it really needed to be.  I normally don’t have a problem with big books like this but this particular one felt especially long due to the way it was structured.  The first two-thirds of the book felt really slow and dragged out, mostly because the story would go off on various tangents every few pages, to the point that one simple scene could take an entire chapter to play out.  Not only that, whenever there was dialogue between characters, it was almost always interrupted by Grace’s personal thoughts and memories (the narrative is told from Grace’s perspective) – so a conversation that might be 4 or 5 lines of dialogue, something that would take up at most a quarter of a page let’s say, ends up spanning over 20 to 30 pages.  There was also a lot of “describing” of minutiae (for instance, several pages describing Grace’s office, from the color of her couch to the paintings on the wall and the backstory on both), details that I felt weren’t really necessary in advancing the plot and mostly made the story more tedious to read.  Halfway through the book, I started to ask myself what the point of the story was, as plot-wise, nothing significant had happened – it was mostly pages and pages of Grace’s thoughts and the tangents she goes off on when someone says something that triggers a particular memory for her.  Interestingly enough, in the last third or so of the book, the style seemed to shift in that the story went from slow and drawn out to very fast-paced, with one thing happening after another – it was almost as if the last third of the book was written by someone else entirely and not the same person who wrote the first two-thirds.  I felt like the story was told in a very “roundabout” way, which made it a bit hard to follow and also exhaustive to read.

With all of that said though, the reason I rated this 3 stars and not lower (technically I’m between 3 and 3.5 stars on this one) is because, despite the convoluted structure, the way the story was written made me feel compelled to keep reading and to find out whether Grace would be able to put the pieces of her life back together.   Character development-wise, I actually felt the author did a good job with the main character Grace in that, by letting us (the readers) into her mind and making us experience first-hand the mental and psychological breakdown that she endures as the result of her carefully-manufactured world collapsing around her, it presented an interesting, thought-provoking commentary about relationships as well as human behavior.  Basically, I liked the premise of the story overall and even felt some sections were cleverly written (especially the parts that subtly juxtaposed what was happening to Grace with the advice that she was giving to her clients), but I wasn’t a fan of the story’s structure or its execution.  When it comes to books, I’m really big on the “experience” of reading a book and for me, this one was a bit of a struggle, though I did get some food-for-thought out of it so in that sense, it was a worthwhile read.

Tying the book back to the TV series adaptation mentioned at the beginning of this review – in reading what is out there so far about the series, one thing I found interesting is that there seem to be characters in the series that were not actually in the book.  Also, in addition to Nicole Kidman taking on the role of Grace Sachs, they also cast Hugh Grant in the role of her husband Jonathan – this is significant because in the book, Jonathan is a character that is only talked about but never actually appears…yet in the series, it seems that Jonathan as a character will have more of a presence than he did in the book.  Both of these things lead me to wonder just how “faithful” this adaptation will be to the book -- but since the series is still in the works right now, I will withhold further judgement until the filming is actually completed and the series is released.

Overall, I feel this book is highly readable, but for the right audience.  It does give some interesting insight on relationships, but I think the length of the book and the convoluted way it was written will probably deter some folks from picking this one up.  I was actually tempted to abandon this one myself during the parts that I felt were especially slow, but of course I continued with it and it does pick up pace near the end.  The reviews for this book seem to be a mixed bag so it’s probably a good idea to check out both the highly rated and lower rated ones to get a better feel for what to expect.

Review: The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After (by Julie Yip-Williams)

My Rating:  4 stars

A few of my library holds came in recently so I am taking a much-needed break from the ARCs I’ve been working through in the hopes that I am able to finish the books before they are due back to the library.   One book that I’ve been wanting to read since I heard of its publication earlier in the year is Julie Yip-Williams’s posthumously published memoir The Unwinding of the Miracle.  Julie died a year ago, in March 2018, succumbing to metastatic colon cancer at the age of 42.  Back when she was diagnosed in 2013, Julie tried to seek guidance through experiences that were already out there, but couldn’t find any that dealt with her unique situation, so she decided to write her own.  She started a blog where she chronicled not only her battle with the cancer that she knew would eventually kill her, but also her life journey, one made even more harrowing by the fact that she was born blind back in the 1970s in war-torn Vietnam and because her grandmother felt there was no hope for her given the circumstances, she would’ve died at 2 months old if not for a kindly herbalist who spared her life.  Julie’s life was defined by constantly beating the odds and proving to everyone time and time again that she would not let her disability hold her back — in addition to having traveled all 7 continents on her own by the time she reached 30 years old, she also graduated from Harvard, became a lawyer in a prestigious law firm in New York, married the man of her dreams, and gave birth to 2 beautiful girls.

Given the incredible odds she had to overcome, it’s no surprise that one of Julie’s first reactions to her diagnosis was anger.  In the blog posts recording her “journey” post-diagnosis, Julie wrote candidly about her experiences, revealing her innermost thoughts and fears, her strengths and weaknesses, and most notably, the emotional roller coaster that she found herself on nearly every day.  The narrative veers more toward despair than hope, though an incredible amount of love shines through as well.  Ultimately, writing [this book] was what helped Julie release her anger and eventually find peace with the inevitable, which I feel is tremendously important.

Some of the other reviews of this book mention the repetitiveness of the narrative and writing that seemed, at times, to be all over the place.  While these concerns were certainly valid, I personally was not bothered by them, especially given the context of how this book came to be (in an interview last month, Julie’s husband Josh Williams said that 80% of the book was from the blog she had started after the diagnosis and the remaining 20% was from an old manuscript she had written several years prior, before they had children, which was about Julie’s childhood and being born blind).  What I appreciated the most about this book was the raw honesty with which Julie recounted everything that happened to her, including preparations for her own imminent death.  In taking such a brutally honest approach, Julie oftentimes did not mince words, which, understandably, did make some of this book a little uncomfortable to read – but again, keeping in mind the fact that much of what was written originally there was no intention to commercialize (the book deal wasn’t solidified until late 2017 – several months before Julie’s death), I found it unfair to lay down any type of judgement whatsoever as it pertained to the writing and the content. 

For me, this was an eye-opening yet heart-breaking read, but I am grateful that I got the chance to read it.  In extending my deepest condolences to Josh Williams and the rest of the family for their loss, I do hope they are able to find comfort in the fact that, through this book, Julie’s story has the potential to touch many, many people. 

Lastly, I wanted to provide a link to an interview that Julie’s husband Josh Williams did in February 2019, which I feel is a great companion piece to the book and is important in the additional context it provides:  https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/josh-williams-on-his-wifes-posthumous-cancer-memoir.html

Review: The Island of Sea Women (by Lisa See)

My Rating: 5 stars

Lisa See is now officially on my favorite authors list, despite the fact that I have not yet read every single one of her novels (which I intend to rectify one of these days).  Ever since reading her previous work The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (a book that I absolutely adored), I had been anxiously awaiting the release of See’s next novel — even though it took 2 years, the wait was definitely worth it!  With her newest work, The Island of Sea Women, Lisa See delivers yet another richly detailed, emotional tale that explores female friendships, family relationships, and the bond between mother and daughter, all against the historical backdrop of political unrest in Korea during the 1930s and 1940s (and beyond that), as well as spanning multiple wars.  

As the story opens, we are introduced to Kim Young-sook as an old woman in her 80s, one of the few remaining haenyeo (female diver) still living on the small Korean island of Jeju.  Though long-retired from the work of diving and harvesting from the ocean that had been a way of life for her family since childhood and later in her adult life, helped her raise her own family, Young-sook continues to have a special relationship with the sea, which is like a second home to her.  As she sits on the shore sorting algae, she encounters a Korean-American family — a couple and their two children — who ask her specifically if she knows Han Mi-ja, to which she answers that she does not know her.  It turns out that Mi-ja also used to be a haenyeo, but not only that, she and Young-sook were childhood friends, once as close as sisters — but that was several decades ago.  What caused Young-sook and Mi-Ja’s once tight-knit friendship to break apart to the point of no return?  The family’s visit stirs up memories of a long ago past and a time period marked by pain, suffering, as well as tragedy, but most significantly, it leads Young-sook on a personal journey of self-reflection that unearths long-buried secrets about the two women’s relationship.

As we’ve come to expect with all of Lisa See’s novels, this story was well-researched and masterfully told in a way that gave us as readers an authentically-felt rendering of history told through richly developed fictional characters who always manage to make their way into our hearts.  One of the things I love about See’s novels is her focus on strong women characters and this story was certainly no exception — as See writes in her Author’s Note, Jeju women were held in high regard for their “strength, independence, and persistence” and all the haenyeo characters in the story, from the older generation of Sun-sil and Do-saeng to the later generation in Young-sook, Mi-ja, the Kang sisters, etc. all personified these traits and more.  I loved all of the characters, but Young-sook especially made an impact on me, even with her stubbornness and other flaws that made her difficult at times.  I also appreciated the historical elements that See was able to weave so seamlessly into the context of the story.  From Japanese colonialism to World War II to American occupation and the establishment of the Korean republic, through the Korean War all the way to modern day, each time period had an impact on the plot, but it is the April Third Incident in 1949 that plays the most significant role in Yoon-sook and Mi-ja’s story.  Prior to reading this book, I had actually never heard about the April Third Incident and was floored to find out the extent of the horrors — the burning of 70% of the island’s villages, the massacre of close to 80,000 people, the displacement of several hundred thousand residents, and then to add insult to injury, for over 50 years, survivors were forced to keep quiet about what had happened due to the threat of death or retaliation under the guilt-by-association policy.  As always, See did a tremendous amount of research for this novel and it shows.

Another aspect I love about Lisa See’s novels is the emotional depth that she is able to bring out with her stories.  I read much of the last third of this book with tears in my eyes and the ending actually tore me apart.  Young-sook is another of See’s characters whom I know will stay with me for a long time to come (much like Li-yan from The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane still comes into my mind from time to time). 

Beautifully written with wonderfully developed characters and a moving, unforgettable back story, The Island of Sea Women is yet another Lisa See masterpiece that absolutely deserves to be read.  Highly recommended without a doubt!

Received ARC from Scribner / Simon & Schuster via both NetGalley and Edelweiss.