Sumi Hahn

I was intrigued by the Jeju Island setting (I’d mostly known about Jeju Island as a honeymoon spot, so discovering stories like this and like [book:The Island of Sea Women|40538657, is particularly fascinating to me.) “The Mermaid of Jeju” looks at haenyeo life, the women divers of this island, who made a living diving and harvesting from the sea, as well as darker chapters of the island's history.

I enjoyed this in general, but I found the second half of the book a bit disjointed. There are just too many time jumps, and it’s hard to get caught up in a story when you’re trying to figure out how this scene connects to the last scene. We’re introduced to characters and then pop into the future when their story is finished -- some odd narrative choices made it feel more like scenes than a story.
… (mer)

Simply stated: The Mermaid from Jeju is down-right magical book. Set part in present day America and part in postwar Korea, it is equal parts history lesson and fairy tale. Beautifully rendered, with language that sweeps you away to the little island of Jeju, you find yourself longing to visit the isle and its naturally rugged beauty of the past.

The book is told in two parts, with Part One being told mostly from the point of view of our leading lady Junja. The reader becomes so absorbed in the rich story telling that when reaching Part Two, which switches gears to Junja’s husband’s point of view, it is almost disorienting. But author Sumi Hahn deftly weaves the two halves of the novel together like fine embroidery, gently looping and back-stitching and connecting each character and piece of the story together into a mesmerizing tapestry.

A rock-solid debut that portends amazing things to come from Ms. Hahn. Highly-recommended, this novel is a great choice for book club readers – a tale so deeply atmospheric that it will linger well after it’s finished, much in the vein David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars.

The Mermaid of Jeju is available December 8th in hardcover or Kindle, and audio CD from Alcove Press, a recently-launched imprint of Crooked Lane Books that specializes in book club fiction.

A big thank you to Sumi Hahn, Alcove Press, and NetGalley for providing a complimentary Advance Reader Copy in exchange for this honest review.

#TheMermaidFromJeju
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#NetGalley… (mer)

The Mermaid of Jeju centers around Goh Junja, a young woman living on the island of Jeju, working as the other women in her village as a strong haenyeo -- diving to the depths for abalone and other sea delicacies they trade for pork. Once she is old enough, she convinces her mother to let her make the trek up the mountain to trade with the family there; that is where she meets Yang Suwol, and her world shifts. The next day when she returns, she is just in time to see her mother die, and her world shifts again. At the same time, Korea is in political turmoil: Japan is forced out of their occupancy by US troops. Junja must learn to navigate the changing world around her.

I really enjoyed this book: it was very good, though not quite what I was expecting. The characters were well-developed and interesting. I especially liked Junja and her journey, even if she was a bit frustrating at times.

The story was told in third-person omniscient POV. Truth be told, it could sometimes be a little disconcerting, especially when listening to the audiobook. The author would intersperse the inner thoughts of different characters, often in the same scene. For example, there was a scene (~ch 5 or 6) where Junja and Suwol were picking ferns, and we get to hear their alternating thoughts from one sentence to the next; further, in the same scene, the reader is also privy to a random crow's thoughts (for no reason, really, except to physically back the reader up a pace, to observe the scene as an outsider?). I want to specify that it wasn't "bad* -- I really liked being privy to the thoughts of different characters -- but it was sometimes a little hard to follow. However, I would argue it was easier to follow in the ebook vs the audiobook. (This was no fault of the narrators -- Cindy Kay and Raymond J. Lee -- who I thought were both excellent!)

Also, at least for me, the second half of the book took a little while to get into. We dive into the narrative from Dr. Moon's POV, who, beyond the reader knowing is the husband of Junja, he is a stranger. Yet we are supposed to care about him. Is he Suwol, or is he someone else? The narration goes into the past and weaves back to the present, following Dr. Moon and his relationship with Junja, from when they meet to when they eventually settled in New York. I thought it worked pretty well overall, though I really like narration that weaves back and forth, from past to present, building up to a big reveal. Even though there wasn't necessarily a "big reveal" -- and I was left wanting more after Dr. Moon's trip to Korea (I won't spoil anything else) -- it was still a satisfying conclusion.

I really enjoyed this book, and I will definitely look out for more books from this author in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley, Alcove Press for the eARC, and Dreamscape Media for the eAudiobook. All thoughts expressed are my own.… (mer)

The Mermaid from Jeju is a beautiful and mystical historical novel about what happened on the Korean island of Jeju after World War II. I first recognized the main character, Junja as a haeneyo deep sea diver from reading Lisa See's The Island of Sea Women, but this is a very different story. It follows a family's progress from 1945 on Jeju to the United States in 2001. Author Sumi Hahn weaves together multiple points of view, timelines and mythical tales into a story that is both beautiful and horrifying. In the audio book, Cindy Kay and Raymond Lee's beautiful voices soften the impact of harsh lives in war-torn Korea and they truly capture the emotion of the characters as their lives are ripped apart. I am torn in reviewing it, I loved the stories of community, resilience, love, history and mythology but could barely tolerate reading about the atrocities of war. My favourite part was the author's note at the end, which put the whole story into perspective with the author's own life experience.… (mer)