I've wanted to read this for a few months now and was so excited when it came up as a recommended read for me on my kindle. I've not read many books by Korean authors (I think the last might have been A River in Darkness, but that was a North Korean author), and I'm really interested in reading more with a Korean setting.
Kim Jiyoung is a name that's basically the equivalent of 'Jane Doe'. The book starts with Kim as an adult starting to have a breakdown where she impersonates other women, both dead and alive, almost pretending to be them. Her husband is alarmed and sends her to a psychiatrist. The book then travels through Kim's life, following the relentless misogyny that pursued her from early childhood, with her brother getting a greater share and quality of food, up to motherhood, where she's faced with the loss of her career.
This was such an interesting book. It's short enough to be almost novella sized and pretty gripping. If I'm honest, a lot of it just me feel sad: going through all the twists and turns in a woman's life, all met with endless misogyny, was bleak. I found Kim a character that you could really relate to: she's a normal woman, and her story is so similar to so many others that she really does seem a Jane Doe. She doesn't live an extraordinary life, or have a redemption where she manages to overturn the misogynistic system; instead it catches up with her.
The main reason why this was only a 4 star read rather than 5 was that I felt it ended quite abruptly. I would have loved to see where the rest of Kim's life was heading. I would really recommend this to anyone interested in learning about life as a woman in South Korea, seeing a new perspective on the #metoo movement, or just wanting a short read to burst out of a slump.
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