Cover Image: If I Had Your Face

If I Had Your Face

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Member Reviews

If I Had Your Face is a timely representation of the rising issue of body image in Korea, where women are pressured into conforming their facial features (particularly eyelids) into Eurocentric idealised views of beauty. This book is a necessary book: needed to understand societal views of beauty, and how Western views of beauty dominate the world. Thank you Frances Cha.

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I enjoyed reading this novel and was drawn into the story of the young women of Seoul. I liked the insights into Korean culture and the way the women interacted with one another. I was really disappointed by the abrupt ending. I read an ebook version, so I was totally unprepared for the novel ending with lots of loose ends and felt that it didn't stop at a natural point of closure..

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Survival in beauty-obsessed contemporary Seoul.

This riveting debut follows four young women as they forge a life in a frenetic society where plastic surgery is the answer to getting on.

Beautiful Kyuri works in a 10% (an exclusive room salon which employs only the prettiest girls in the industry) entertaining businessmen.

Orphan Miho is awarded a scholarship to study art in New York where she becomes entangled with the exclusive world of the chaebol (corporation) families.

Mute Ara, a hairdresser, is infatuated by Taein, the lead singer of a K-pop band.

Married Wonna is fearful of bringing a child into this world.

A fascinating insight into modern Korean life, full of strict social hierarchies, avid consumerism, low birth rate and an ever-widening generation gap. The light sprinkling of Korean terms add authentic flavour.

Cha writes assuredly, with intriguing characters and tremendous pace.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Books (UK) for the ARC.

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This book felt extremely realistic
I felt the main characters were multi-dimensional and really cared about their fate. Very well written and insightful.

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It took me a while to get into this book but once I got into it I enjoyed it. In terms of voice, I could draw similarities between Cha and Celeste Ng, Sara Taylor and a touch of Jessie Burton, all writers whose work I've enjoyed. I wasn't fully gripped by the story but that's a personal preference thing rather than a criticism of it per se. I may revisit this at some point to see if I just wasn't in the right head space for it, but I definitely learned a lot about Seoul which is not a place on my cultural radar.

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The story of a group of women trying to survive life in Seoul. They have each found their own path but none of them seem happy. as you follow their lives, their history is revealed.

Written well and easy to follow the story drags you in until you cant put it down.

I enjoyed following the narrative but in the end I felt like I was left with a lot of questions unanswered. I am also unsure if this a true reflection on how society is in Seoul now or the authors vision of the way it is heading, This is definitely something I will look into and will end up teaching me more about the world so it gets a star for that (I love anything that educates me)

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This novel fascinated me for two reasons; 1st I read it in almost one sitting, it was really gripping, and second it's a debut!! I really can't believe this is a debut novel.
I know nothing about Korea and Korean culture but the culture surrounding the beauty trends and what it could reach was so interesting to read. Also as a woman although this was a completely different world, I still found things that reflected here in my own life.
Definitely worth reading!

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If I Had Your Face is an impressive debut; a compelling novel of friendship and female experience in a male-dominated world. In fact, I would never have guessed this was a debut novel without the blurb: Cha is an assured writer and an erudite guide to the Seoul her characters inhabit.

But while Cha paints a vivid tableau of Korean culture, this is very much a universal novel of female experience. The central characters are expertly drawn, and each narrator has their own distinctive tone and perspective pull. There may be hints of k-drama imagery and convention, but there are no clunky clichés or fairytale endings here. The characters simply muddle through life as best they can.

The premise may seem a little bleak, but I found If I Had Your Face a surprisingly hopeful novel, and an utterly engaging read.

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Read it in a breeze!
It is a beautiful novel about contemporary Seoul and millennials living in South Korea, and the beauty culture and how it affects women there.
The novel follows the lives of 4 women, 3 of whom are friends, that live in the same apartment complex.
It is very fascinating to see how they live their lives, from a westerner's point of view, knowing very little about South Korean culture, but it is also a beautiful novel about ordinary women and how they deal with relationships with men, bosses/co-workers and their careers.
I would definitely highly recommend it, as I read it in a very short time and couldn't put it down!

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I thought that this may be a book that would elude me, having never been exposed to Korean culture or the massively popular Kpop trend. But I think that the author has written a story that will resonate with all women, because it speaks to the female role in a society that remains dominated by men. If I Had Your Face shoots from the hip when examining how a woman's worth is measured by her perfection in the high beams of the male gaze- beauty that only copious amounts of surgery and touchups can achieve, not too outspoken, not too smart, and rich but not more rich than her male counterpart. The book is also brutally honest when breaking down the barbed nature of female relationships, being at once ruthlessly competitive but also fiercely loyal. Despite being a work of fiction, every character rings true right off the page. I'm so glad I took a chance on this one, and can't believe it is a debut. I look forward to more work from Frances Cha.

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What an utterly compelling novel. I loved it from the beginning to the end. It is a page turner that you won’t want to put down
It is written very well with a perfect pace to the storyline
Excellent book

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If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha is a novel about four young women in contemporary Seoul and the friendship between them.

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The gorgeous cover made me grab this, along with the chance to get an insider view of female lives in Seoul. Some of it is shocking, particularly the extreme plastic surgery that has women shaving their jaws to meet someone else's ideal of female beauty even if it means they can't eat... but at heart I found this sticks to a formula: the four female friends who support each other through everything.

All the women speak with the same voice and there's something a little muddy about the writing so that it lacks clarity and vitality, as if we're hearing everything through a muffled layer. Worth a read, though, for the insight into Korea and young Korean lives.

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