Juhea Kim's debut, Beasts of a Little Land, is a historical fiction novel spanning several decades that mainly follows the lives of two characters: Jade, a young girl who is sold to a courtesan school, and JungHo, the orphaned son of a hunter. It presents itself as "an epic story of love, war, and redemption" and does a decent job of living up to its premise. Unfortunately, there were certain elements of it that made it fail to meet my expectations.

I will say Kim's writing was enjoyable for the most part; it's very atmospheric and poetic in certain sections and was compelling enough throughout for me to keep reading. I also learned a lot about Korea during the early-mid 20th century through this book and thought Jade and JungHo's story was a very touching one. However, I found the majority of the side characters to be flat and boring and did not care for the multiple timeskips that emerged in the second half of this book. I felt that the various and seemingly unnecessary details about the other characters watered down the story, while the timeskips somewhat fragmented the plot. Still, Beasts of a Little Land is an impressive debut and I'll probably end up checking out some of Kim's other work.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of Juhea Kim's "Beasts of a Little Land." The characters were engrossing and the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Korea was incredibly interesting. I was especially happy that it was a book focusing on the experiences of women and girls and what they sacrificed and went through during this time period. So many little moments, like the way Jade and her friend Lotus would giggle after getting a ride in a rickshaw from a handsome boy made me feel so connected to these characters.

However, towards the end of the book it felt like the characters were put secondary to the plot, and the writing style took me out of the story a little bit. While the writing was quite beautiful in terms of the narration, the dialogue at times felt stilted and unrealistic to me at times, almost like cartoon versions of what real people might say. I felt this in particular with the villains.

I would still highly recommend this book to anyone who likes sweeping historical fiction, multiple POV's, and a colorful cast of characters!

This is one of those books that illuminates how little world history I know. Starting in 1917 and ending in the 1960's, this book follows Jade, who is sold to be a courtesan in Korea during Japan's occupation. There are many characters and different stories to follow, but the overall story is beautiful and shows long-term female friendship as well as how love changes over time.

This story is incredible. It recounts the Japanese occupation in Korea and the story takes place over the course of many decades and touches on multiple perspectives of the people during that time. There is a plethora of characters which I sometimes find hard to keep track of, but the author really does a magnificent job of telling each story independently and then weaving them together at the right moment so you don’t lose track of anyone. At times, the story felt lengthy - this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. One of the things I enjoy about historical fiction is that it isn’t always a thrilling mystery, sometimes the captivating magic is in the characters and it should be noted it is a very character driven novel. Overall, I loved learning about the Korean Independence Movement and while I am have a soft spot for historical fiction from any era, it’s always refreshing to find historical fiction that genuinely teaches you something you didn’t know and that is outside of WWII.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Many thanks to Juhea Kim, HarperCollins Publishing, and Goodreads for a digital copy of this book. I read and reviewed this voluntarily and opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own. This book is available for purchase on December 7th, 2021!

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

I got the feeling that this was an expansive novel, as I opened it I thought how I would be able to sink into this other place, the streets outside my window are covered in snow and I was eager to be transported. The first pages did not disappoint. “A marriage was so sacred in the eyes of gods and men that a lowly tenant farmer’s daughter, born and raised in undyed white hemp everyday of her entire life, was permitted to play the part of the most noble of women just for a day.” (6).

I really enjoyed the journey that this book took me on!! This covers the span of 47 years in Korea beginning in 1917-1964. The cast is large as the reader is introduced to many people from young girls training to be courtesans, rickshaw runners, Japanese political leaders, and orphans living on the street. The book guides you through their lives over the years and I loved it. I loved the wins and the fails, the giving and the hate, the good and the bad. People have so much fire in them to better their lives! Even more, it was so great to delve more into this region of history and the period of time. The Japanese occupation of Korea. The communistic ideals that were desired. The Americans and Soviets split the country.

THIS book is the epitome of why I love reading. I am completely entertained by a beautiful story and taught about a region and a time in history in an interesting way. This makes me feel connected to my planet, to people, and to history. History is so important to understand, in the hopes that we recognize what does and doesn't work, in the attempt to avoid repeating what was not done right in the past.

Because of the wide cast of characters, I think this would be a better read, and even more, I'd recommend the actual book so you can flip back and forth between the dates and characters. Closing in at the end I wanted to reference back to the beginning to remember who they were and what they did at the beginning.

A brilliant, colorful, vibrant, captivating debut novel that had my heart in its grip from the prologue all the way to the last page of the epilogue. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much Ecco Books and Netgalley for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to read this because it was recommended for people who enjoyed the book Pachinko. I loved Pachinko!
This was good, and I could see many similarities. It covers a lot of time in the history of Korea, it weaves in political and war history seamlessly via all the characters, and it tugs at your heartstrings.
It's also different though - the characters are connected more loosely, it's not a direct lineage type of family saga. This is made up of found family and different characters doing what they have to do to survive. It's also more depressing I have to say. Every time one of the characters had a potential chance for love or happiness it was dashed. It made it difficult for me to finish the book, and I started guessing who was going to die next. However, this is not to say the book wasn't good. It was! But it was very bleak by the end.

This is an epic story of intertwined lives in Korea during the first half of the 2oth century, including the long years of Japanese occupation. I was unfamiliar with the time and place which is always a plus for me when reading historical fiction. Although I did not become emotionally invested in the characters, they were well drawn and the author skillfully builds and ultimately brings together their parallel lives. The storyline kept me engages and I would definitely recommend this book to my friends and fellow readers.

Enjoyed this sweeping historical tale well enough but I never got attached to any of the characters. While some were endearing, none gripped me enough to care when horrible things happened to them. The story was interesting but there wasn't enough emotional depth. I think its because the characters themselves did not have any super strong connections. I will definitely keep a look out for more from the author in the future though.

I finished reading Beasts of a Little Land just before its pub date earlier this month, and it’s easily one of the best books I read this year. While I admit I was not fully taken with the book based on its opening chapter, I soon grew invested in the many characters whose interwoven lives comprise this gorgeous tale. The reader is transported to early twentieth-century Korea, and I learned a lot about Korean history along the way. I loved the idea of inyeon -a connection or thread that binds people together over the course of life - that characterizes the story. Ms. Kim has crafted prose which is beautifully descriptive yet avoids being florid or cliché. The novel, while capturing specific eras and circumstances, still manages to speak to resonant universal truths. The biggest criticism I might give is that its pacing seemed a bit rushed and inconsistent as the end of the book approached. Nevertheless, the bittersweet and touching epilogue was possibly my favorite part, and had me in tears. There is a little something for everyone in this novel, and I feel it would be a worthy read for both individuals and book clubs.

When reading Beasts of a Little Land, I was reminded of several other books. Pachinko, as both of these novels were epic tales following characters and families over long periods of time, featuring Koreans in Japanese or Japanese-occupied societies. The young girls training to be courtesans made me think of Memoirs of a Geisha, and the friendship and competition between them reminded me of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Though the similarities may be somewhat surface level, I think any readers who enjoyed these books would also enjoy Beasts of a Little Land.

It starts with an encounter with a poor hunter, some Japanese soldiers, and a tiger. From there, the lives diverge. We follow a cast of characters through the next few decades, with the Korean independence movement and World War 2 in the background. The characters come from very different backgrounds with varying motivations, and their paths cross and separate as time pushes their lives forward.

Two of the main characters are Jade, a girl who is adopted into a courtesan's household, and JungHo, a poor orphan with a fighting spirit. The writing of the novel places the characters at enough of a distance that I didn't feel a strong connection to them, but I was still interested and invested in their lives as they progressed. Fate also played such a strong role in the destinies of the characters that it could be considered a main character itself.

In the end, I was very impressed by the intricacies of the plot and storytelling and found it to be a satisfying read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

First I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.


I read on average off 100+ books a year, rarely does one impress me as this one did. I am not going to recap the book in the review, just know if you like history, realistic romance, violence, politics and fate read this book. 5 stars.

At its core, Beasts of Little Land is a love story. Following the interconnected tales between all types of people on both sides of Japan's occupation of Korea, this novel illustrates not only the different types of love for people and places, but the different stages of it.

Like life, we start as children. Our main characters start out young and wild at the start of Japan's violent occupation of Korea, where love is something parents show their children, and exists between friends in the form of running through the streets and taking care of each other's scraped knees. Years later, we watch as Jade, once thought to be just "nice" grows into a thoughtful, talented, and striking young woman, drawing the attention of every man in the vicinity. At the same time, JungHo is learning that there is indeed a difference between their worlds, and starts his journey to becoming "worthy" of Jade and earning his way into her world.

Despite this story that digs deeply into unrequited love and finding yourself through trying to prove yourself to someone else, my favorite part is the underlying tension between the Japanese military and the Korean rebellion. It increasingly makes itself known as a driving force of the entire story, even through JungHo and Jade's tale, as well as that of Lotus and Dani and MyungBo. This tension is affecting them all and their decreasing capacity to survive and by the end of the novel, it had me questioning who would live to see it all. At that point, it almost returns to a childlike love of sorts, although it has survived trauma and heartbreak. There's a deep love of the land they come from, a desperate love of life that connects them all, and what happens when the two collide. As a person who doesn't often read historical fiction, Beasts of Little Land had me changing my mind on the entire genre.

This is an epic story of the history of Korea told through the eyes of a young girl, Jade It starts in 1917 when Jade is 10 to her late 50's in 1965. She was sold to a courtesan because her family couldn't feed all their children. From there she was moved to Seoul to another courtesan. There are parts that remind me of Memoirs of a Geisha. The life of these young girls is fascinating. The backdrop of the book is the poverty and ill treatment of the Koreans by the Japanese and their eventual independence. The writing is uneven. The opening chapter about a hunter's encounter with a tiger was one of the strongest openings of a novel I have read. But other times the love lives of the young courtesans seemed melodramatic. The author paints a good picture of the revolutionaries that fought for independence and the horrible treatment at the hands of the Japanese. It skipped over the Korean War which was surprising. I wanted to love this book. I will look forward to future books by this author because I think she has real promise.

If you’re in the mood for true historical fiction, unlike Malibu Rising (I’m still not over that ridiculous award yet), this novel will quench your thirst as it weaves together dozens of characters in Korea during Japanese occupation who are “inyeon” or destined to know each other, as their lives are meant to be shared. A well written and researched debut, I enjoyed armchair traveling from Pyongyang to Seoul to Jejudo and witnessing the journey of so many intertwined people.

“Life is only bearable because time makes you forget everything. But life is worthwhile because love makes you remember everything.”

Thank you NetGalley for my ARC

“A spectacular debut filled with great characters and heart.” —Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

"Unrequited love, class warfare, scandal...this novel has it all." -- Real Simple, a Best Book of 2021

Oh, how I love a book that is as gorgeous inside as it is outside. Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim is a lavish tale of war, class, and love. I see this being one I'll return to again and again.

Many thanks to the author, Ecco Books, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Beautiful and brutal epic tale of Korea during the Japanese occupation. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't know anything about this timeframe of Korean history. This book is the best kind of historical fiction in that it puts the reader in the middle of the action.
Jade is a young girl who is sold into courtesan school. JungHo is the son of an impoverished hunter. Both of them experience much out of life as they meet and then meet again. There are numerous other minor characters that connect with them in many ways over the years.
Loved this-much thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the storytelling and the slow reveal of one woman’s life. It starts off really intense and Kim just throws you right into the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1910s. I actually had to take a month-long break from reading this bc I was not ready for how intense the war atrocities were spelled out. (CW if you didn’t already know: rape.) I loved how Kim gives all the female characters so many dimensions and how they were so badass especially Silver the courtesan madam — she was probably one of my fave characters. This book fit in really well of my learning of Korea’s 20th century history and I understand a little more why some older generations of elders may harbor animosity towards folks of Japanese descent. All in all, this was a great read!

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which starts in 1917 and follows the characters' lives through to 1965. There are a lot of people to keep track of, but once I was able to get a handle on them all, I loved how all of their stories interconnected at various times throughout the years. If you, like me, enjoy historical fiction, then you know at times authors can seem to hit pause on the story line to feed you historical information in order to move the story along, and it can feel like reading a textbook. That does not happen in this novel, while you do learn about Korean history through the experiences of the characters, the storyline is never sacrificed. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you @netgalley and @eccobooks for the advanced e-copy

TW: rape, sexual assault