Gu Byeong-mo
Hanover Square Press
3 December 2024
224
eBook - PDF
Contemporary Fiction
ARC via NetGalley
From the New York Times Notable author of The Old Woman with the Knife comes a bracingly original story of family, marriage and the cultural expectations of motherhood, about four women whose lives intersect in dramatic and unexpected ways at a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul.
When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.
Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colors. Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start?
Apartment Women was a deceptively light and easy read that had a lot of hidden depth. I enjoyed the multiple-POV narration as this allowed us to see the characters both as others saw them and from their own perspective. Quite often the reasons behind their actions were misinterpreted by others, which is a good life lesson to bear in mind, as no one else can ever know fully our inner thought processes, so it is easy to be misunderstood and to misunderstand others. The novel painted an interesting picture of life for families (with a focus on the mothers) in modern-day Korea as they struggle to manage both home life and work. It also considered the good points and bad points about apartment living. I am giving it 4 stars. I really enjoyed it, but a part of me wished it could have been a little longer and given us more details on the characters before things concluded.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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