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Kristen breaks down and reviews Crystal Hana Kim's debut novel and provides her thoughts and opinions in an analysis.
Hey, I’m Krissi! Join my growing community of readers as I count down my favorite reads every month. Tune in if you've read the book, have some strong opinions, questions, or if you just want to relax or have something to listen to on the go!
Warning: this episode will include mentions and discussions of violence, mental illness, death, and suicide.
Hello everyone! Welcome to The K.A.R. Recap! I’m your host, Kristen Rhoda. I am an English and Music student who loves discovering, reading, and exploring old and new works of literature, television, and film.
This podcast is partnered with my Instagram blog, K.A.R. After two to three weeks of reading the chosen novel, I discuss the plot, the background, the characters, and certain themes and other literary devices that stuck out to me. So if you enjoyed the work, or even if you didn’t like it, let’s just talk. If you haven’t read the book, please know that this episode contains spoilers. Remember: I’m just as curious as you are, so there’s no right or wrong here…just learning and some healthy discussion. So sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy this episode.
In this episode, we will delve into If You Leave Me, a very powerful historical fiction novel and the debut novel of Crystal Hana Kim. Kim is a Korean American author, and a Columbia University, Hunter College, and Teach For America alum. If You Leave Me was published by HarperCollins in 2018, and has been praised and named best book of the year by several publications, including but not limited to The Washington Post, ALA Booklist, and Cosmopolitan. Her work has also been published in ELLE Magazine, Glamour Magazine, and many other publications. She has also written several essays and reviews. Kim has also discussed how her writing is inspired by her grandmother, with whom she was very close, and who told her several stories about life in Korea.
If You Leave Me is based on events of the Korean War. It follows Haemi, a young refugee who is forced to flee to Busan with her family. In this heartrending story, Haemi struggles to choose between true love and financial stability.
Please join me as I explore several different literary devices that Kim uses to tell this story.
Before I discuss the story and how it’s told, let’s talk about the historical context real quick.
So this novel is based on the Korean War. The war began in 1950, which is a year before If You Leave Me begins. On June 25, the Northern Korean People’s Army invaded South Korea by breaching the 38th Parallel, which was the line that divided North and South Korea. North Korea’s goal was to gain control of South Korea and unify all of Korea under the communist government of the North.
Two days later, the Republic of Korea parliament met in Busan. In October 1950, Seoul was retaken by the U.N., only for the 38th Parallel to be breached again in December 1950. Because of this attack, South Korea had to return to Busan. By 1951, Busan had about 500,000 refugees living there, in addition to the original population of 882,000.
1951 is when Haemi’s story begins, after she, her mother, and her younger brother Hyungki flee to Busan.
So from here, sixteen-year-old Haemi and her family have been dealing not only with their flight to Busan, but also the death of her father. By day, she cares for her heartbroken mother and Hyunki, who is nine years younger than her and suffers a terrible illness with no actual medical attention. At night, she sneaks out to meet with her childhood friend Kyunghwan, as she has been doing regularly. Up to this point, they have been spending time at hideouts and rekindling their friendship, but soon romantic feelings begin to grow during these secret meetings.
Meanwhile, Kyunghwan’s rich cousin Jisoo is determined to marry Haemi and start a family with her before they both enlist. Haemi chooses to marry him, in order to gain financial stability and medicine for Hyunki. But without her husband or Kyunghwan around, Haemi is dissatisfied with her life as a housewife, so she works as a nursing assistant and helps wounded soldiers.
The Korean War ends after an armistice in 1953. After the war, Haemi and Jisoo settle in her original home, and they have children. From this point until the end of the novel, Jisoo’s and Haemi’s relationship worsens. Jisoo begins to sleep with other women, and Haemi and Kyunghwan, reuniting after twelve years apart, realize that their romantic feelings for each other never went away. This causes even more conflict between Haemi and Jisoo. Haemi and Kyunghwan begin to think of running away together, but when this doesn’t happen, Haemi’s mental health deteriorates. In 1967, Haemi commits suicide. Kyunghwan returns for her funeral, only for there to be even more heated tension with him, Jisoo, and his four daughters.
Now that we’ve gotten through the historical background and the story, I’m going to talk about how Crystal Hana Kim tells it. I won’t have time to get through everything, so I’m just going to discuss what stuck out to me personally.
Point of view.
Rather than telling the story through one person’s point of view, the story is told by mostly all of the main characters, including Haemi’s oldest daughter Solee. Now, along with other people, I’m personally not always a fan of shifts in point of view. In my opinion, shifts are used in too many novels that can do without them, but I think that the shifts were not only VERY well done, but vital to the story in a way that I didn’t expect at all.
I enjoyed the shifts in point of view because they expose a lot of Jisoo's character. Now, Jisoo is…a piece of work. But the thing about him is that we don’t officially meet him until the second chapter, which is told from his point of view. As a matter of fact, we don’t even know he exists until Kyunghwan confronts Haemi about it while they’re hanging out. The first time his name comes up is when they’re talking, and then Kyunghwan randomly goes, “Oh, by the way, my cousin told me you’re dating him…what’s that all about?” And Haemi just goes, “...huh?”
So within fifteen pages of the novel, we’re already introduced to some juicy stuff, and we’re wondering who the devil this Jisoo even is. So the point of view shifts, we finally meet him, and literally the FIRST thing he does is brag about how he got kicked out of class for making fun of his handicapped teacher. And then he talks about himself, and then he makes fun of Kyunghwan for caring about school, and then he talks about himself some more…he’s one of those dudes. We let him speak for five seconds and I already wish he’d just shut up.
BUT I enjoyed that dynamic. It showed a great contrast between Haemi’s quick-witted yet kind and motherly personality and Jisoo’s self-importance. What I most enjoyed about this is how he talks about his plans to marry Haemi, compared to when he has dinner with her and her family. Before the dinner, he’s so confident that he’s going to impress her, but then at the dinner he gets too comfortable and BLOWS it. I loved those scenes. When I first read that, I was in public and trying so hard not to burst out laughing.
However, this device is what made me hate Jisoo altogether. Every time it was his time to narrate the story, he absolved himself of every bad thing he did to Haemi. Throughout the novel, he verbally and physically abused her, he hit her when she was pregnant, and somehow nothing was ever his fault. I mean, there are times when other characters will reveal how horrible Jisoo is to Haemi, but he didn’t need any help doing that.
Irony.
Another thing that I actually love about the point of view shifts in this novel is that they create dramatic irony. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a type of irony in literature where a character has no idea what’s actually going on, but the audience does. So in the case of Haemi’s relationship with Kyunghwan, they’re the only ones that know about it. When Jisoo is going on and on about his plans to woo and marry Haemi, he thinks that they haven’t talked since childhood, and that there’s no other guy in her world to create any sort of competition for him. That is HILARIOUS to me because he’s so confident about it, but…who’s gonna tell him?
And last but not least, the theme of jealousy.
The reason this theme stuck out to me was because of the way it was treated after Jisoo and Haemi settled down. So obviously, Kyunghwan still loves Haemi after twelve years, so we already know he’s been jealous of Jisoo from the beginning, but as I mentioned while breaking down the plot, Jisoo eventually gets bored and starts to sleep with other women. For the record, let me just say that does not surprise me in the slightest, considering the kind of person Jisoo is. But naturally, as the wife of Jisoo and the ONLY woman he should be involved with, Haemi is upset. So this jealousy is 100% justified, because…Jisoo is a cheater. So both Haemi and Kyunghwan were completely justified in their jealousy.
But were they justified in their little affair? Eh, not so much. I’m a very strong believer in the concept that cheating isn’t okay, but come on. When Jisoo found out that Haemi and Kyunghwan were in love, he was HOT. He was so mad, as if he hadn’t been sleeping with multiple women. Cheating isn’t okay, and that would make any married person upset, but that’s what he gets. And the other thing is, Kyunghwan was willing to make peace with Jisoo after Haemi died, but Jisoo was still bitter and angry about it for the rest of Haemi’s life, and after her death.
But let’s talk about WHY Jisoo was jealous. Was he angry and jealous because he loved Haemi? Um…NO. When Jisoo was so confident about wooing Haemi, I guess he had the sense that he was in control. So Haemi’s romance with Kyunghwan was a massive blow to his ego. Again, I absolutely hate Jisoo, but I love how jealousy was displayed differently by different characters in the novel.
While I wish I could keep talking and ranting, that’s all the time I have for this episode. Thank you for listening to me drag Jisoo. No, but on a serious note, there were obviously spoilers in this episode, but if you still would like to read the novel for yourself, I encourage you to. Also, feel free to visit my blog, follow me, and share your thoughts on things that I didn't touch on! My handle is @k.a.r.blog on Instagram.
If you want to read more of Crystal Hana Kim’s work, visit her website, crystalhanakim.com, where you can find links to her essays and reviews! Again, I encourage you to follow my blog on Instagram, where I will reveal the next work that I will be reading and discussing next!
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the K.A.R. Recap. Subscribe to this podcast, so that new episodes will automatically be downloaded to your device. Take care, and see you next time!