Books No. 2-5 of 2020
I don’t see this as a series of books so much as I see it as an epic saga that happens to be split into four so you don’t have a lug a massive tome around.
As a whole, the books are a rich, evocative world of complex characters, resonant writing, and a narrator who somehow manages to articulate, perfectly, feelings or thoughts I didn’t know could be put into words. It’s a coming-of-age story that’s simultaneously bleak and optimistic; it’s laced with a heavy dose of fatalism and violence, and yet it’s beautiful and brimming with passion.
Similar Reads
For that aching coming-of-age feeling: Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko.
For other books with strong themes about the complexity of being a gifted woman in a patriarchal world: Catherine Chung’s The Tenth Muse, Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
For unsympathetic characters who make questionable decisions who you root for anyway: Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires.
For a beautifully written multigenerational story in which one person’s tragedy ripples outward, forever shaping others’ lives: Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland.