February/March 2021 Book Choice

 The Life She was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman was our mid-winter read. 

Here is selection of a book review from ForewardReviews 2017:

Ellen Marie Wiseman gathers potent Gothic elements in The Life She was Given to examine the impact of
child abuse across generations. A sumptuous plot balances horror and tenderness to reveal lesser-known facets of history.

In the 1930s, Lilly, a daughter held captive in Blackwood Manor’s attic, is sold to the circus. In the 1950s, Julia, a runaway teen, inherits the family manor and horse farm, where she uncovers lies about her past. Coralline Blackwood is an exacting matriarch who wields the Bible as a weapon.

As each character grows, their histories overlap; the secret that binds them lies at the heart of the book’s tragedy. The Life She was Given is a vibrant maze of desires. The sharp divide between expectations and painful truths, mothers and daughters, past and present, culminate in a sensational finale." 

January 2021 Book Choice

 The Girl with 7 Names by Hyeonseo Lee was our Dec/Jan read. 

A non fiction first hand account of escaping from North Korea

2015 Startribune review: 

"Lee tells her story in a straightforward style (helped by a credited collaborator) with only brief interjections about her feelings at a particular moment. In the epilogue, she writes that "the smallest thing sends me back into steel-plated survival mode" and that she endures "bouts of self-loathing."

"No sooner do I achieve something than I become unhappy with myself for not doing better, and achieving the next thing," she writes. Even on a South Korean TV program with other defectors, she notes that she cried less than others. Her mother, meanwhile, still dreams about the relatives they left behind.

Her book shows that the years between her escape from the North and her arrival in the South were far more perilous. China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand (though to a lesser degree) pursue and persecute North Koreans with a ferocity that seems unconscionable to Americans, even compared with our pursuit of terrorists and border crossers. Lee developed survival skills, quickly picking up Chinese and exhaustively saving money for bribes she knew she would need to pay, bribes that again and again saved her."

Toronto Star Review July 2015 

"Indeed, while the greatest strength of this book is its clear, observational style (Lee thanks a co-writer, David John, in the acknowledgments), almost equal is Lee’s candor about the toll that this kind of life takes on an ordinary citizen. For instance, upon her defection to South Korea (where she now lives), she reflects on the long-standing effects that the “old mentalities” have on defectors. “Paranoia, a vital survival tool when neighbors and co-workers were informing on them, prevented them from trusting anyone,” writes Lee. Depression and anxiety are also common.

She’s also honest about the complexity of her relationship with her former homeland, including her continued love of country, and fragmented identity (the book’s title reflects her continued need for new disguises during her escape). “Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe,” she writes. In the epilogue, she admits that bouts of self-loathing still challenge her as an adult."