This was a very enjoyable and informative historical fiction set in North and South Korea and spans the years 1917 through 1965. This debut novel by Juhea Kim has a great storyline - starting out with a vivid encounter in the snowy mountains of Korea that captures the imagination. The story revolves around several characters whose fates are intrinsically intertwined as they live their lives under Japanese occupation, the struggle for Korean independence, and through the second world war. From the courtesans, young orphans, and those struggling to make ends meet to the military officers, businessmen, and politicians, this book is about relationships, survival, history, culture, and much more. It traces the course of Korean history through the lens of its characters and is a wonderful way to learn more about North and South Korea. The characters are well developed and the writing is excellent and vivid - particularly for a debut novel - hats off to the author for a great job. I especially liked the characters of Jade and Captain Yamada - both so different yet possessing the essential traits of humanity, integrity, and decency. Overall, an excellent and recommended read. And by the way, I loved the cover of the book! Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this early copy.

Beginning in 1918 in a Japanese-occupied Korea, this epic historical sweeps through over fifty years primarily through the eyes of some beautifully drawn characters. There was much to admire -- well written, a solid rendering of the thorny relationship between the occupier and natives, and struggles for survival. The star-crossed would-be lovers, Jade and JungHo, who always seem to be there for one another but remain separated due to circumstances and the forces of history. Jade's life forms the core around which the events revolve, and her resilience as she is sold early on while living in the North, making her way to Seoul under the protection of Dani, an influential courtesan, and the fate of the country. I don't usually choose historical epics, but found this well researched and literary, and totally involving.

This engrossing novel portrays the movement for Korean independence from a variety of perspectives including a group of courtesans, communist revolutionaries, a rural hunter, and the Japanese occupiers.

This book has a fairly good plot line but often the characters are left lacking- a problem with multiple points of view over many years. The depiction of how relationships fall apart, often with simple miscommunications and assumptions as well as instant write offs of people felt pretty accurate and simultaneously heart breaking. Simple miscommunications set relationships on the rocks for years to come and continued to compile the gap between two beings multiple times in this book.

I have little knowledge to this period of time in Chinese/Japanese/Korean history so have no idea if the historical portrayals are accurate but it was quite interesting because most of my knowledge of history comes from U.S. perspective. For a book about the wars impact, there is limited war talk and instead focused on the human connections or lack thereof which made for a more digestible read. There are some sad and triggering events but this book doesn’t spend too long going into graphic detail when it doesn’t have to which aided to making the book digestible as well.

I wish that some of the messages that were directly pointed out were not. A couple big ironic full circle moments were shown and then explained such as Jade’s quasi love triangle. It was a painful reality that the reader could see exactly how much work and effort one character put into building a life worthy of Jade while she fell for someone low in society. It didn’t need to be directly said and sort of cheapened that plot line.

A peeve I had with this book was how the depiction of who became successful and who became haggard by life was. While almost everyone suffered in this book, women were the ones to suffer the most and often in ways lasting longer than death while whatever men were left were blessed with insurmountable amounts of luck. Even main character Jade surviving through the war was more than once at the hands of men helping her and being the savior. When men did suffer it was often the “good guy” rather than objectively horrible people. Maybe that’s the reality of life too but it made it a little bleak and felt like I somewhat wasted a lot of time getting to know these characters throughout the whole book.

I really enjoyed this book which is an epic piece primarily revolving around the life of Jade, a young Korean girl which spans her lifetime in early 1900 Korean. The elegance and then war and hardship and finally redemption are portrayed well in this novel. Very well written with wonderful character arcs.

The writing in this book was beautiful but the content wasn't what I was expecting so I couldn't enjoy it. I recommend looking up TWs before reading as I couldn't finish the book due to triggering content.

Before reading this I was completely unfamiliar with Korean culture, specifically I had not heard of courtesans. After looking up what they were, I was very eager to read this novel.
More and more, historical fiction is becoming my favorite genre for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that it actually gives voices to people and families that lived through particular points in time. It’s not always enough to know what significant historical events happened, sometimes we need to “feel” them. For those of us who have never seen war up close and personal or witnessed exactly how devastating it is to the people living or who have lived within war zones, I think that historical fiction is an excellent and effective way to communicate that. Especially when it is written well.
Juhea Kim has masterfully told the story of Japan’s occupation of Korea before and during World War 2. I feel like these events often get muddled in history lessons or glazed over due to Hitler and the uprising of Nazi Germany that was going on at the same time. This story focuses on how Japanese imperialism impacted the lives of Korean citizens that were already struggling to make it.
The novel focuses mainly a group of people that fates become inextricably intertwined- Jade,Nam JungHo, KimHanchol, and Yamaha Genzo.
There are so many things to unpack from this novel, but one thing that sticks out the most for me is the strength and resilience of the Korean courtesan women. They were viewed as the lowest of the low in their social class publicly, but privately they had a tremendous amount of influence. Though I have not had the chance to study and do a lot of research, I would assume that given the nature of their business that a lot of these women were a lot more financially independent than a lot of the men with “respectable” jobs though they were not all wealthy. It’s interesting to me how courtesans both very young girls and women seemed to have had a semblance of a safe place to live, an education, and food- but these were things not guaranteed if they were married, especially not education. As terrible as it is to me that a young woman had to make her living this way, I also recognize and respect that it was part of a culture that I do not completely understand.
The story was a very relatable one of family, love, loss, war, injustice, human brutality and greed. From 1917-1965, the political unrest and wars that are happening in the background throughout this entire novel are the reasons for everything that happens in the lives of and all of the decisions made by the characters.
Beasts of a Little Land, to me, is the story of the extremely traumatic and violent times that shaped Korea into what it is today. This book has left me wanting to know more about Korean culture and its history, and also I wanting to read more novels by Korean authors.

Love this book with all the powerful characters. Am sure, it is going to be a treat for Min Jin Lee's Pachinko fans. I loved the book cover and how the author decided to have a tiger on the cover representing Korea. Beautiful.

This book was painfully beautiful. From page one to the very end, I couldn’t read it fast enough. If you liked Pachinko, you will like Beasts of a Little Land.

Wandering, blinded by starvation and the snow, a hunter finds himself to be hunted. A tigerling tracked him. After collapsing, near his end, a Japanese nobleman and soldier, who himself is lost finds him. The hunter safely leads him down the mountain and the two unlikeliest of people become linked.

JungHo is a survivor like his father the hunter. He comes to Seoul to change his future. After working his way up the hierarchy of street thugs, and he finds himself a pupil to communism, with a powerful benefactor. Set during Korea’s fight for independence, the many political and military factions fighting for dominance serve as their own character in the story guiding the actions of each individual.

Jade, a young naïve girl from the country inadvertently becomes a courtesan in training in Seoul, when her new young friend Lotus refuses to leave Pyongyang at the behest of her mother without her. Initially not thought to have much potential, Jade defies all her handlers to become a successful actress, eventually falling for a young man of noble birth.

Jade and JungHo’s paths intertwin for more than fifty years, with many others woven in along the way. Their yarn is made up of love, fate, war, loss, friendship and loyalty. Although this novel does not come out until December, I highly recommend adding it to your to be read pile. (Warning there are several triggers—violence for sure, rape, assault, and murder—some of these multiple times.)

I loved the story of mom and daughter as they revisit the history of their family. I didn't give it 5 stars because I thought the history lesson on this area was too tedious. I did thing the description s of the feeling of the people was so important to the story.

I LOVED this book. I was pretty ignorant about the history between Japan, Korea, China and Manchuria--I knew Japan had occupied Korea during World War II but not to this extent and duration. I also have read a bit about present-day North and South Korea, but didn't know how/when the split had happened. So this was both educational and a complete page-turner! I loved the different story lines, and found all of the different characters to be really distinct and well-developed. Even the harder characters (Yamada, Ito, Kim) were given their humanity. I will heartily recommend this and gift it!

I loved this one! It was a little confusing at the start with all the different characters, but they become so well-woven together as the book goes on that the reader is able to gain a deep understanding of all of the main characters. The book spans from the earlier 1900s to the 1960s in Seoul, taking the reader through the war and the aftermath. I could not put the book down and wanted to know what would happen to all the characters.

I struggled to get through this one. It was very slow paced and while the plot was interesting, the pace and long chapters & detailed descriptions ended up making the book drag for me.

This book was interesting, and I really loved the idea behind the narrative. However, I had a big problem with the pacing. I felt like it was way too long, and that the action happened too slowly. The last few chapters all felt like a very prolonged wrap up that definitely could have been tied together in a few pages. All that being said, I’m giving this book 3 stars because I did really enjoy the way that all the storylines came together. I wish that JungHo’s sense of what is going to happen would have paid off more in the second half of the book, but I did really like that we got a tie in to the prologue towards the end. An interesting and very well conceived universe of characters.

Really interesting setting you don't often see in English language books. If you're looking for a very detailed book with long intricate descriptions this is for you.

This is a poignant historical fiction novel concerning the Korean independence from Japanese occupation and colonization. It was a very educational book for me, and I enjoyed learning about the historical and political changes, especially as to how they affected our protagonist. This was a hard book to read but a rewarding one.

The opening chapter was very strong, and caught my attention. However, I wasn't fully engaged by the characters, possibly because the prose was a little too exposition-y for my taste. With such significant time jumps, it felt like the context for a lot of characterization was missing and the narrative didn't spend enough time fully developing the characters at any individual period. That said, the atmosphere and setting of Japanese-occupied Korea were very evocative.

This one is a bit hard to review. The beginning scene and the connection it sets up doesn't really carry through the book (and therefore makes the description kind of pointless). It does speak to the strength of the women in the time period and the importance of friendship and love, on whatever form it shows up in. Jade was a wonderful character and reading about her evolution was extremely engaging. I was disappointed in Lotus who seemed to become a completely different person, as well as the two men that Jade helped reach their full potential. They owed a lot more than they acknowledged to her. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher..the story is rich and writing is excellent.

This was a gorgeous historical fiction set in the early twentieth century Korea. Hauntingly tragic and beautifully tender, the story of Jade Ahn is interwoven with the fate of Korea in between the world wars. Jade is apprenticed to a courtesan at a young age to learn the ancient trade. Her best friend Lotus and her sister Luna are the only other girls in apprenticeship, and their friendships form the unbreakable bond that leads them through multiple tragedies and loves. Juhea Kim's writing is absolutely beautiful; her sentences are crafted with such care and kindness, even while describing unspeakable horrors. This is Korean fiction at its best. Recommended for fans of Min Jin Lee and Amy Tan--or anyone who enjoys well written historical fiction!

A solid 4 out 5 stars. It was easy to get lost in the setting and the story was very compelling. There was just enough heartache to balance the beauty.