The Island of Sea Women (Lisa See)

Why I have this book: I borrowed it from the ebook library.

Okay, so my aunt (who passed away last year) had recommended this book to me not too long before she passed. She warned me that it wasn't always easy to read due to some atrocities committed against the people in the story. To do more research about this, I read the one-star reviews on Amazon, and the readers acted like this book had so much disturbing stuff in it that they couldn't get it out of their minds. I decided not to read it.

A friend just recently recommended it to me, as well. I asked her about the disturbing stuff, and she reassured me that it wasn't as bad as some other books we had both read, so I decided to take a chance on it.

Oh, my goodness. I LOVED this book. Yes, there are some hard things to read about, but it's not expressed in gratuitous tones. There is so much humanity in this book. So much about friendship, motherhood, womanhood, the longings of our hearts...

I could go on and on about how much I felt while reading this book. It's set in Korean culture and history, which has special meaning to me because my daughter was born there. It was also super interesting to read about the sea women of Korea. I had no idea.

I gave it five stars on Goodreads. I wish I would have read it while my aunt was still alive so I could have talked to her about it.

There are hard things in this book, but most are confined to a section in the middle. It's not as descriptive as it could have been, but it's still hard to think about. The book is open about marital relations (but not descriptive), female bodies, birth, death, etc. I don't recall any swearing.