Sadly this was not for me. The writing didn't work and there were too many POVs for the story to feel engaging. Definitely potential, but the execution unfortunately let it down.

I loved this historical fiction about Korea. I appreciated the two timelines as well, seeing how the stories were similar throughout the book.

The title is a stark comparison to the vignettes about the MCs and diff major tragedies affecting Koreans and the Korean War/geopolitics. As they work to recover from these tragedies, I was left wondering who were the liberators. Clearly not the neocolonial powers that interfere with Korea but the Koreans themselves as they work to figure out what it means to overcome.

The story covers a ton of ground sometimes without much follow up. When there were some major events that the MCs experienced, some readers might’ve wanted more follow up. But the way the author wrote about the events felt somehow very korean in a way…of how some people deal with tragedy, the longevity of suffering and life beyond that with levity as well.

While a lot of tragic events, the book didn’t feel dark in tone and I quickly read most of it on the plane.

The Liberators is a powerful punch of a novel packed into a mere 240 pages. With an economy of words, almost bordering on stinginess, Koh delivers full fleshed characters and a tragedy of relationships and history. This is a masterful work of historical fiction.

The novel revolves around two intertwined narratives, one historical and the other intimate. The division between North and South Korea is the constant thread of grief and loss that plays against a more personal tragedy in the form of a young couple's romance, marriage, and slow death thereof as the husband and wife are separated through migration and tradition. Nation here becomes an actor itself; the North and the South, like siblings or lovers torn apart by foreign forces, growing in ever divergent directions. This parting is mimicked by the husband and wife, until at last reconciliation seems impossible.

Here is a complex interweaving of expectations and desires that become thwarted by forces of history and culture in ways that are beyond any individual's control.

This was a very interesting book, particularly if you like Korean history and overcoming trauma endured from oppressive rulers. The story is told during various periods of time, by different characters, at times I had a hard time following who was narrating. Insuk and Sungho are a newly married couple when Sungho leaves for America to make enough money to bring Insuk, their son and his mother over. It takes him a while to do that, and it may be due to the 'driving instructor' he meets. He does eventually succeed and they all live in a very small apartment in California. Sungho works at a dry cleaners, which he quits to open his own. Insuk works at a restaurant, which burns down leaving her unemployed for a while. In between the telling of their story there are jumps to incidents that happen in Korea, or to Koreans (mass murder after a ship is blown up, the drowning of hundreds of school children on a Ferry). All very interesting, though the prose can at times be difficult to get through, I did really enjoy this book and I would recommend, just be patient. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Tin House Books for the ARC.

The Liberators is a multigenerational family story set in Korea and America. Told primarily from Insuk and Sungho's points of view, it follows their path as they get married and eventually move to America and the struggles they face along the way. Koh touches on key points in Korean history to focus her narrative and how they shape the character's lives. Overall, a well written retrospective novel although at times each chapter felt like a short story and sometimes it was hard to connect them to each other. Readers interested in family stories or recent Korean history will like this one.

In a masterful piece of Korean American fiction, E.J. Koh brings a multigenerational immigrant story to life. Tracking a family from the 1980s through to the 2010s, Koh draws on key historical events from both Korea and Korean America to shape the narrative. The narrative primarily follows Insuk, her husband Sungho, her mother-in-law, and her son, as she negotiates her new identity as a wife, an immigrant, and a woman. Koh’s narrative is character-driven, focusing on their interactions with major and minor characters as well as their personal experiences and emotions. Koh’s narrative, while slightly ambiguous and conceptual, is a fascinating insight into Korean-American culture, migration, specific events, and experiences. This novel, jumping around the last forty years, brings readers across a series of events specific to South Korea and Korean Americans which have had profound influences on the characters and the Korean American community. Koh’s novel has layers of references and symbolism in section titles and further references built for an audience in the know (who will understand the references). The Liberators is a fascinating, complex, and detailed novel that brings an aspect of the Korean American experience to life.

Covering four generations of a Korean family, this is a sensitive and well written novel of sacrifice and the struggle for a successful life. The different voices found in this book are extremely effective in bringing the changes in lives made from making the choice to leave one's homeland for a better life.

I don't like to read romance, but I love to read about love that feels real and that is exactly what I encountered in The Liberators. Heartbreaking, raw, powerful love. This short and beautifully written novel with richly drawn characters and I highly highly recommend for fans of historical and literary fiction alike.

THE LIBERATORS by E. J. Koh is a beautifully-written, compact novel that explores political and familial dynamics in Korea and among the diaspora. Told from alternating perspectives, the novel shows how key events in Korean history, from the sinking of the Ukishima Maru to the Gwangju Massacre to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, reverberate into the present, impacting the lives and psyches of the descendants.

The prose is a stunning elixir of poetic and economical, packing loads of meaning into each sentence. The first chapter knocked my socks off in how Koh crafts the character of Yohan with incredible precision and intensity. It would be easy for a book that skips among characters, continents, and decades to go awry, yet with Koh’s capable crafting, the handoffs between chapters are perfectly timed. It’s a literary take on historical fiction that works well for me.

Koh’s confidence shows in the length of this book (240 pages); she doesn’t pander to readers’ lack of knowledge of Korean history and she trusts readers to extrapolate from the slivers of conversations and arresting scenes that she does include. I would have read a book double this length because I wanted more time with the characters and with the prose, but keeping it punchy was the right editorial call. With themes of family, trauma, loss, loyalty, and breaking generational patterns, this is a moving multigenerational saga with trenchant sociopolitical context and enduring imagery. Ultimately, THE LIBERATORS asks: Who are the liberators? The liberated? Who has yet to be liberated? And to what end?

Thank you @tin_house for the gifted copy and @netgalley for the eARC. I'm very impressed with what Koh has done here!

The novel, which is told from the perspective of multiple narrators, focuses mainly on a Korean couple who marry during the military dictatorship in South Korea and later move to California with their mother and newborn child. It begins with the perspective of the grandparents, and then moves to Insuck and her husband Sungjo. Once they move to California, Insuck feels adrift in her new community and her mother-in-law treats her terribly while Sungjo is constantly working. Through the characters’ experinces the novel touches on the pain of living through war, a country and family divided by governmental dictates, dictatorship and massacres.

I had high hopes for this book but just couldn’t connect with the story or the characters. There were times when the story flowed for a chapter or two and I could dive in, but then it would shift, and I was adrift again. I found the post-war Korea historical perspective interesting – it is so rich with stories waiting to be told; but just couldn’t bring myself to immerse myself in this one fully. I appreciate the writing and that is why I am rating it higher than I would if it was solely based on enjoyment.

3.5

Thank you to NetGalley and TinHouse for the ARC to review

A family saga sprouting from a Korean couple who moves to the United States at the height of Korea's military dictatorship.

This story is heartbreaking and urgent and I loved getting to know this flawed family. I struggled a bit with settling into the writing, but once I found my footing I was glad I pushed through. I will absolutely be picking up Koh's memoir soon.

I am very interested in Korea and the tragic history of this country so I was eager to read this book. I had a little trouble getting into it at first. You have to work for it. And that's not a bad thing. By the time I finished the book and the arc became clear to me, I was impressed all around with the story, the character and the writing style. Koh has created memorable and very human characters who carry more than their fair share of burdens. As I read, I'd stop to consider the title of the book and where the liberators might be. There's a lot to absorb here and this would be an excellent pick for a book club that relishes a challenge.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's both exquisite and haunting.

The Liberators follows a family on its journey from Korea to the United States and the life they find there. In many ways it is a quiet and subdued book, but the events and lives it covers are large and loud in their way. Read this if you read to spend time with fully realized characters that feel like genuine (if flawed) people.

Spanning multiple generations, this novel explores historical events, primarily in Korea, and their implications as they were experienced and passed down. The story deals with displacement, yearning, survival, and grief related to the family's origins and the place, the United States, where they moved. The writing is poetic in nature, and while that's often something I'd find irritating in a novel, it worked here. Despite being floaty or seemingly detached, it does not come across as vapid or shallow. Instead, I experienced it as expansive.

The Korean peninsula has been the site of some of the most brutal horror, combat, and political repression of the past 75 years. World War II saw the land and its citizens subject to abject terror at all physical and psychological levels. This was then followed by the Korean War horrors of chemical warfare, famine, generational trauma with constant threats of nuclear obliteration, military enforced division of the country, executions, forced labor, rape, incarceration, exile.

Much fiction and non-fiction has been written documenting all aspects of these war crimes and atrocities. Acclaimed poet and prize-winning story teller E.J. Koh takes the baton in her compelling debut novel, “The Liberators”, a profoundly sad and beautiful novel, clearly based on deep research and knowledge.

Koh’s style of using multiple characters to narrate individual sections led me to settle in for the classic multigenerational tale of families exiled, torn apart, reborn - diasporan hopes dashed and eventually overcome. “The Liberators” is certainly all that, written in a visceral sparse and emotional register. But it surprised and delighted me that Koh did so much more by also focusing on the political and devastating social scars of the horrors, separation, exile, families and friends torn apart - spying, informing, deceiving. The political/psycho thriller aspect of “The Liberators” will stay with me as much as the family tales. The desire for reunification in all its forms will remain forever.

Koh has much to offer and is worth following closely moving forward.

Thanks to Tin House and NetGalley for the eARC.

Deep and penetrating, this novel is not for the average reader. It is a psychological study of a family though generations as they live in Korea during the civil war and then emigrate to the USA. There is more than one voice that speaks and gives a personal perspective on the events of the time both political and familial.

Since my knowledge of Korean history and culture is limited, I looked forward to this short study of Korean life and history. And while I did gain some awareness, I was stymied by the the often slow and plodding pace of the book. This story needs a slow deliberate read and I found myself racing to get past some sluggish parts.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is an important read. But for me, I just lacked enthusiasm for the writing style. My thanks to NetGalley and TinMan publication for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I read this book that gives snapshots of modern Korean history through different voices of one family in Korea and then the U.S. too quickly. It was a fast read but I should have slowed down to realize who was narrating each chapter and to appreciate the beauty of the writing and the connections. Anyone with a fondness for Korea should enjoy this book.

The writing is good but I had a hard time following. The multigenerational aspect was interesting but some of the plot just didn’t track.