Hi Readers! It's been a year and a half since I updated you with a list of the books I've read. It took me a year to finish books because of a busy schedule and lots of school stuff. This is another list of all the books I've already read since the start of the year 2023. This list will go on, as long as the year finally ends. I hope you find it an inspiration to somehow find happiness in reading books and making time for the little things you love.
1. A River in Darkness (One Man's escape from North Korea) by Masaji Ishikawa
It was 12 midnight when I started to read this intriguing story that accounts the terrifying escape of a Japanese returnee in North Korea. At 2am when I finally finished the book, I cried myself to sleep. I don't know maybe I weep for all the words that I could not express after reading the story. Masaji Ishikawa’s memoir starts on a night when he stands at the edge of the Yalu river, waiting for the moment when it will be safe for him to escape and cross the border to China. His family, three sisters, A South Korean Father and a Japanese Mother are effectively forced to go to the North Korea when it was annexed by Japan. They were promised to have a good life in the "Paradise of Earth." His story is a reflection of the life inside a Totalitarian regime and the most secretive country in the world. It shows how people are being controlled even with their own thoughts and how people are forced to fight each other to survive. I remember how in this book, he tells the story about being bullied at school for having a "Japanese" blood. First paragraph of the book really moved me;
“You don't choose to be born. You just are. And your birth is your destiny, some say. I say the hell with that. And I should know. I was born not just once but five times. And five times I learned the same lesson. Sometimes in life, you have to grab your so-called destiny by the throat and wring its neck.” - Masaji Ishikawa
2. Tell me everything by Minka Kelly
This book accounts the life story of the Actress and philantrophist, Minka Kelly. Growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico up to her adulthood. It includes her complex relationship with parents, specially with her mother who struggles with addiction and becoming independent at a very young age. I tried researching about her and sadly, all these tabloids are just a bunch of shallow news that accounts with her relationship or dating history and a bunch of Hollywood stuff. It's great to have a glimpse with her life and becoming an inspiration for a lot of people in that same situation. In her memoir, she accounts all her childhood and teenage memories and the toxic relationships she had dealt with. She looked at all the situation with an eye-opening perspective, understanding each one of them and where does this issues coming from. In her book, she tries to understand the complexity of the relationship that she have with her parents. That Parents are human beings too, that should also be forgiven and understood. They aren't perfect and they try to bring up their kids in their own different ways. In their own means and the life available at their grasp.
3. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
The story starts with the protagonist narrating his everyday experiences in campus in the hands of his bullies. His classmates calls him "eyes" because of his Lazy right eye. His eyes made him a target of bullying for other boys led by his classmate, Ninomiya. The setting of the story happened in pre-internet era, no cyberbullying or internet to share thoughts and awareness. One day, the narrator finds a special connection in a girl named Kojima. She is a mirror of the protagonist, in a sense that the girl is also bullied by her girl classmates because of her dirty, cheap clothes and messy hair. They built a special friendship as they find clarity and depth to their own sufferings.
4. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Have you ever read a book that after you've finished reading it, you're kind of zoning out and asking yourself "what the F-ck did I just read?" well, I have asked myself that question after being disturbed reading this dystopian-gore novel by Agustina Bazterrica. Seriously, I'm not kidding, I had a difficult time eating meat for dinner for 3 days! (because of this book). It has a unique and compelling plot, not the typical dystopian novels that I've read for those past few months. It's not just about gruesome novel where people eats people. You can find every chapter, page-turning and wondering what might be the end of it all.
5. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
The story is slow paced, It becomes gripping as you progress. It tells the story of a woman's struggle to break free. Yeong-hye and her husband, lived in ordinary idle life. A perfect wife in the eyes of the society. But suddenly it changed when she starts to refuse eating meat (just like everyone else) haunted by nightmares about it. She began to act differently from what a supposed "perfect" mother and a wife should be. It's about being different in a society where there are norms or standard while trying to break-free and become your true self.
6. Behind Closed doors by B.A Paris
The story is somewhat predictive yet suspenseful and triggering. It will keep you interested although the story is a bit slow in progress. Behind a facade of a perfect marriage, Jack and Grace is hiding a completely absurd and far beyond fairy tale marriage. It's triggering in such a way that the story centers about a manipulative character and abusive relationship that in reality, women are experiencing behind close doors.
7. Kim Ji-young, born 1982 by Cho Nam -Joo
As an Asian woman, it feels relatable to read. It details the life of Kim Ji-Young, as a mother, daughter and a housewife in a typical asian family and in a society with unsettling sexism and misogyny. This story tells her life as she face psychic deterioration of being possessed with some of the women in her life while trying to share their perspectives.
8. Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
This book is the last one I've read for 2023 so far. It will give you the creeps that you might actually feel if you grow up reading creepy-pasta stories like me. This book is inspired on creepy-pasta and it tells about the narratives of a man while he reconstructs and reminisce about the stories of his mysterious and unsettling childhood. Maybe some of us had a childhood memories we can't remember or became completely blurred to our minds that we try to repress.
