Figlie del mare

This was not an easy book to read, yet I’m glad that I did. It’s a beautifully written tribute to Korean women who were taken from their homes during the Japanese occupation and forced to be “comfort women”, an inconceivably gentle phrase for the sex slaves they were made to be . It’s also a tribute Leggi tutto

I love when a story takes me to a place I've never heard of, especially an exotic location in the South Korean sea. But in 1943, that beauty was shadowed by the horrid history of war. Taking hundreds of thousands of lives - not just soldiers, but women who were kidnapped and offered up to soldiers t Leggi tutto

This is a book with very hard to read subject matter. It is a beautiful book and an ugly book,and a book based on historical truisms. It is also about historical events of which I had no knowledge. Hana comes from a long line of strong women who are called haenyo, they dive for a living, capturing th Leggi tutto

4.5**** Look for your sister after each dive. Never Forget. If you see her, you are safe. Korea, 1943. Both Hana and Emi have lived their entire lives under Japanese occupation; their Korean names, literature and cultural practices are repressed and made illegal. Living on Jeju Island, Hana is a Haeny Leggi tutto

A deeply moving and beautifully written historical fiction novel of human resilience and enduring love of sisters, a story about the Korean ‘comfort women’ prostituted by Japanese soldiers in World War II and two sisters separated as young girls but the bond of sisters remains strong and they never Leggi tutto

This book was a fictional tale about an important real-life historical topic, so I really wanted to love this book, but I only ended up sort of liking it. When a book tackles such a horrifying time in history- when Korean women were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military as Leggi tutto

Powerfully heartbreaking. I am always so appreciative of authors that bring remarkable stories like this to the forefront. How many stories like Hanna’s exist? ‘The list of women suffering wartime rape is long and will continue to grow unless we include women’s wartime suffering in history books, co Leggi tutto

Sometimes, old wounds need to be reopened to let them properly heal The white chrysanthemum – in Korea, the flower of the funeral, the flower of death. This story tells of death – perhaps not always death of the body; the spirit can die too. This book tells of the ‘comfort women’, women stolen from Ko Leggi tutto

This well done historical fiction covers two sisters in Korea, starting during WWII and going right through 2011. While I was familiar with comfort women, what was less known by me was the history of Korea between WWII and the Korean War. I had no idea of the brutality of the South Korean government Leggi tutto

4.5 stars! It's been a long time since I've been this uncomfortable while reading a book, but it usually happens with historical fiction just as this one. White Chrysanthemum has two narrators in two different timelines: Hana (in 1943) and Emiko (in 2011). Both are haenyeo, women who dive into the