PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM: A GUEST REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM

BY KYUNG-SOOK SHIN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway.

Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.

You will never think of your mother the same way again after you read this book. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kyung-sook Shin is the author of numerous works of fiction and is one of South Korea’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists. She has been honored with the Manhae Literature Prize, the Dong-in Literature Prize, and the Yi Sang Literary Prize, as well as France’s Prix de l’Inaperçu. Please Look After Mom is her first book to appear in English and will be published in nineteen countries. Currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City, she lives in Seoul.

SOME "Q & A" WITH THE AUTHOR:

Q: Please Look After Mom is written in four distinct voices: a daughter, a son, a father, and finally “Mom” herself. Why did you decide to structure the novel in this way? Which voice came to you first?

A: Human beings are multi-dimensional. But what we know about our mothers doesn’t always tell the whole story of who they are. I wanted to show a ‘Mom’ who was a complex and profound human being. As it was impossible to do this in a single person’s voice, I needed multiple narrators. In the novel, the voices of the daughter, son and father are narrated in the second person, “you” and the third person, “her”. It’s only the mother who uses the first person. I had in mind the fact that, when a woman becomes a mother, she no longer gets to speak or sometimes even think in terms of that “I”. Of the four different voices in the book, the mother’s is perhaps the most vivid and powerful. When I was writing it, it felt as though my mother’s hand had held—even gripped—my authorial hand, so that she could tell her own story.

Q: This is an extremely personal novel, and readers will undoubtedly think about their relationship with their own mothers while reading. Did you draw on your relationship with your own family while writing the book? 
 
A: My own family relationships do in fact make up the background, but the episodes in the novel were invented, or altered from reality. My own mother for example, thankfully, has never gone missing. But, speaking at a symbolic level, many mothers of our generation, I believe, have gone missing or remain neglected.

These question and answers were taken from Kyung-Sook Shin's Q&A from her publisher, Random House, and you can read the rest by going HERE!

GUEST REVIEWER AND REVIEW:

I am excited to introduce my Guest Reviewer, Carol N. Wong.

     Carol is a retired federal legal assistant, who attended Indiana University and has an AB in Psychology, MS., and Specialist degree in Counseling & Guidance. She tells me she has been an avid reader since she was very young. She loves biographies, memoirs, history, historical fiction, non-fiction, some young adult, mysteries, including thrillers, cozies and suspense, and Amish literature. As you can see, and Carol says, she is pretty eclectic, but usually will shy away from monsters, vampires, ghosts, as well as pure romances.

     Carol likes to write her reviews on her lap top in her craft room. She says, "When I read a book, I write down notes when something strikes me or a question that comes up. Later, I usually don't look at the notebook, the act of writing seems to put it in my head."

     Carol lives in the Dallas area with her husband and two cockatiels. She has a son currently working in Chengdu, China.

And now, enjoy Carol's Review of PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM.

A bestseller in Korea and it should be here too. This is a short book that get involved in Korean traditions and family secrets.

When you read it, you may feel that it is simple but it is not. A Korean woman approaching old age gets separated from her husband in the Seoul train depot. The main focus of this book is the mother but viewed through four different sets of eyes. There is a young college educated writer daughter, and also the precious son who vows to study to get a prestigious and good paying job. Prestige and status are very important in Korea. Also, there is a father who only thinks of his wife as the mother of his children, and lastly the mother herself.

This is the first time that I have ever read a book written mostly in second person. I thought it would make the story difficult to follow but it just makes the story seem more real. It is amazing to realize that this is a translation, the writing seems so natural to me. The traditions of North and South Korea have differences. And like China, the standard language is mainly spoken around the capital with dialects in other parts. The writer daughter in the story represents the social change that is now happening in South Korea. Before, the traditional women seems meek and subordinate but as demonstrated in the book still has some power. But this book is more than a demonstration of social change, it is exploration of family secrets and complex interaction of the different persons in the family.

Even food plays a part in this story. There is tremendous amount of work that goes into the preparation of traditional food. I enjoyed the description of how the mother prepared Kimchee as that is one of my favorites. Outside of that, I think that you will be amazed at the amount of work the old mother does each day.

This book will take you on a parade of different emotions You will not be disappointed in this book. I recommend it to everyone interested in Korea and the inner workings of a family.
Carol states, "I received this book as part of the Amazon Vine Program but that did not influence my review. My thoughts are my own."

Thank you, Carol! I am so thrilled to be working with Carol and watch for some other guest reviewers in the future. It really helps me to be able to bring more books to my followers as well as look at a book from another person's perspective. 
 

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO KIM WITH KNOPF PUBLISHING,
I HAVE ONE BRAND NEW HARD COPY OF
THIS BEST SELLER TO GIVE AWAY TO
A LUCKY READER!

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
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IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FOUND INTERESTING ABOVE THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOM

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  GIVEAWAY ENDS AT

6 PM, EST, MAY 29

GOOD LUCK!