There was a lot to like about this one. The descriptions of snow were gorgeous. I learned about lesser known parts of Korean history, but my brain started to conflate the different events and characters. I wish the book had focused on just one moment in history. Ultimately, the book lost me in the second half.

Early on in the book, the narrator's best friend, Inseon, has had an accident, and is in a hospital where she is getting a particularly excruciating and repetitive pain treatment, by inducing pain every five minutes (!), to ensure the pain nerves develop properly as part of the healing. The narrator finds the description of the exercise bewildering, and soon goes on to connect the cause of the injury back to herself.

That is symptomatic of the pain and anguish that forms the core of the novel. There are roundabout connections uncovered along a painful path of discovery, and the recollections come in waves, with narratives nested inside narratives, and memories nested those narratives, and photographs and newspaper clippings rounding out the whole package. There is considerable storytelling happening here, and most readers will find it beggaring their belief as they find out about the atrocities described herein, based on real events of ethnic cleansing along the parts of the Korean peninsula, a few years either side of 1950. Thousands were massacred, entire villages and regions wiped off the face of the Earth, mercilessly and remorselessly. Official apologies came as late as 2003 and 2018, but not from all parties involved. Without going into too much details, the story presented here is one particular perspective, but as collected from survivors or near survivors, witnesses and next of kin.

The first half of the book is a bewildering journey by the narrator to a remote village where Inseon lives - ostensibly to save her pet bird. Reading it one may find it difficult to imagine what's coming later on. She gets lost, almost dies, falls down a small ravine, gets buried in snow, very nearly freezes to death before making it to the cottage. Her personal plight serves the purpose of preparing the reader to what's coming. It may feel overwhelming - seeing what all she goes through, to save a pet bird, that may or may not be still alive by the time she reaches the remote cottage. Along the way, she reminisces of Inseon, how they met, some good times, and some of what may have led to the accident that triggered the chain of events that led our narrator on her way in such life-threatening conditions.

Once she reaches the cottage, however, the story takes a new approach. Part fever-dream, part seemingly hallucinatory, part phantasmagoric - the story peels back layer after layer of memorabilia and memories as being told by Inseon, who has surprisingly appeared at the cottage shortly after the narrator herself reaches it. From that point on, the story is a veritable roller-coaster, with each page revealing new horrors and hitherto unbelievable anguish and loss. Yet, somehow, Inseon carries on telling her story, which actually turns out to be her Mother's story.

By no means an easy read, this book brings forth an important and relatively unexplored aspect of the history of the Korean peninsula, the true extent of which is largely unknown outside the immediate geography. Decades have passed, and yet many of the families impacted by the pogroms have had no closure. Many never will. At least some of the complicit parties have never apologized. Ultimately, the book is a sad reminder of how widespread humanity's sense of hatred is - for itself, and how pervasive our sense of "us vs. them" is.

In times of a more-divided-than-ever-before society and world, we need to see a mirror like this to remind us that there's more ways in which we are alike than ways (in which) we are different. Can a way of thinking justify literally exterminating communities? Isn't that what's still happening in 2025? Will we ever stop? Are we even capable of stopping?

Many thanks to Han Kang, Random House / Hogarth and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

I don’t know if this was a bad time to read this, or if this was exactly the book I needed. But I don’t regret reading this.

I’m going say upfront: you will want to check the content warnings. I do not say that lightly. Han Kang is unflinching in her focus on the most difficult aspects of history because it’s a story that needs to be told, and it’s a story we need to listen to.

When I started reading his, the book descends so much into dreams and dream like qualities that it was difficult to follow. But that is intentional. The MC is often seen as an unreliable narrator because tyrannical governments don’t make it easy to seem reliable. It also reflects the hazy nature of memory, particularly memories that people have tried to suppress.

This book is haunting, sad, hazy, and painful. But it’s important. Sometimes we need to be reminded that just testifying to uncomfortable truths is a revolutionary act. And if it’s not your story to tell, it’s revolutionary to shut up and listen.

WE DO NOT PART opens with a snowscape where black tree stumps recall the bodies of people massacred on Jeju Island decades ago. Kyungha is a writer who wrote a book about the massacre. Now haunted by it, she has been asked by her injured friend Inseon to journey to Jeju Island to save a beloved pet bird. As Kyungha struggles through a serious blizzard to reach Inseon’s house, moments from their friendship and interactions with the bird are interwoven with the falling snow of a blizzard and the historic massacre. Though there is a journey and movement, the novel is a slow one, built over memory and scene and image rather than story and plot. At the same time, it is a haunting, evocative, and beautifully written book, and I understand why Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize winner Han Kang is a South Korean writer who rose to prominence for her novel The Vegetarian, an enigmatic book that (to me) seemed to be about the inferior position of women in South Korean culture; dysfunctional families; artistic obsession; and mental illness.

Han Kang's 2021 novel, 'We Do Not Part', now translated into English, is another cryptic novel that focuses on the consequences of bloody massacres that occurred in South Korea after World War II.

I'm not sure what would (or would be not) be spoilers for this unusual book. So just to be safe, I'll say there might be spoilers ahead.

When we meet the narrator of 'We Do Not Part', a Seoul writer called Kyungha, she's long parted from most of her family and friends, and is emerging from years of isolation. Kyungha is plagued by migraines, stomach spasms and night terrors, which may be connected (in part) with Kyungha's research for her book about the massacre at G-. [Note: We can take this to be the Gwangju Uprising, a series of student-led demonstrations that occurred in Gwangju, South Korea in May 1980.]

Kyungha describes a recurring dream - which she's had for years - as follows: Snow is falling and thousands of black tree trunks jut from a low hill. They vary in height, like a crowd of people ranging in age. Stooped and listing, they give the impression of a thousand men, women and haggard children huddling in the snow. The sea is encroaching on these 'gravestones', and they need to be moved to safety.

Kyungha depicts some of her other disturbing dreams as follows:

"I can't recall the face of the uniformed man who kicked me in the flank as I lay sprawled on the ground and turned me over with his boots. What I do remember is the shudder that ran through me when he grabbed his gun with both hands and pushed the bayonet into my chest."

"Alongside women unknown to me, I climbed down the well, helping them to hold on to their children. We thought it would be safe down there, but without warning a shower of bullets rained down on us from above."

"When we stepped inside, the mass murderer was standing with his back to a wall.....Murderer, I thought I should say. I opened my mouth. Murderer.....What are you going to do about all the people you've killed, I said, using every last once of energy I had."

Kyungha's recurring dream about the black tree trunks inspires her to do a joint project with her friend Inseon - a photographer, documentarian, and carpenter. Kyungha asks Inseon, 'What if we do something together? What if you and I were to plant logs in a field, dress them in black ink, and film them under falling snow?' Inseon agrees, and suggests they use a tract of land she inherited on the island of Jeju - Inseon's childhood home, to which she returned to care for her (now deceased) mother.

[Note: Jeju was the site of a slaughter that occurred between April 1948 and May 1949. The trouble began when communists and left-wing demonstrators, protesting government repression and the division of Korea, started burning police stations and government buildings. The South Korean government, in collaboration with the United States occupying forces, viciously quelled the uprising, and at least 30,000 people - men, women, and children - were massacred.]

Once the tree trunk project in underway, Kyungha cools to the idea. Inseon carries on, though, preparing log after log in her carpentry shop in Jeju. This leads to a shocking accident, and two of Inseon's right fingertips are severed. Inseon is quickly transported from Jeju to Seoul, to reattach the tips, and is now having painful injections every three minutes, 24 hours a day, to save her fingers.

Kyungha learns of Inseon's injury when she gets a text from her friend, asking her to come to the Seoul hospital right away. Kyungha rushes over, and Inseon implores the writer to go to Jeju IMMEDIATELY, to take care of Inseon's budgie, Ama, who'll otherwise die. Kyungha embarks on a nightmare trip to Inseon's remote house in Jeju - by plane, bus, and on foot - in the midst of a blizzard.

At one point, Kyungha falls into a dried-up stream bed, becomes encased in snow, and curls up in her coat to preserve her body heat. She observes, "My jaw throbs as if it might fall out from the incessant chattering, and I bear the pain by biting down on my stiff snow-covered sleeve to still my teeth." Kyungha struggles on and eventually reaches Inseon's house and carpentry shop, where reality combines with illusion.

At Inseon's home, Kyungha sees to Ama, clears snowdrifts, changes into dry clothes, and then.... weirdly......Inseon appears. "Her face was pale and gaunt, though not to the extent it had been in the hospital. She was rubbing her eyes with her right hand, which looked immaculate, entirely unscathed." Inseon gets a fire going, shows Kyungha the logs she prepared for the project, makes tea, and prepares juk. Kyungha isn't sure what's real and what isn't or who's alive and who's dead. It doesn't matter, because Inseon is there to share her mother's experiences during the South Korean uprisings.

Inseon admits, "I didn't really know my mum so well as it turns out....And all the while I thought I knew her." Inseon's mum, Jeongsim, never talked about the Jeju slaughter. But after Jeongsim died, Inseon found her mum's boxes, filled with newspaper clippings, photos, letters, and notes about the massacres of the 1950s. Jeongsim's brother (Inseon's uncle) disappeared during the chaos, and Jeongsim went to great lengths to find him, or at least to find a bit of his bone to bury. The book contains long segments about Jeongsim's memories of the time, and the tale is dreadful and sad.

While listening to Inseon's story, Kyungha recalls her own library research, done a few years ago. Kyungha notes, "All afternoon, I read about how from mid-November of 1948, the uplands of Jeju burned for three months....By the spring of 1949, when the scorched-earth policy was temporarily abandoned after the state failed to find the whereabouts of the roughly hundred guerrillas, an estimated twenty thousand civilians were hiding out in Hallasan [Halla Mountain]....They had judged it safer to brave starvation and the cold than risk facing the summary executions along the shores..The commander who had been appointed to the island in March announced plans to sweep through Hallasan to eradicate all commie guerillas, and leaflet bombed the island to flush civilians out to the coast for the efficiency of their operations. Archive photos showed rows of emaciated men and women walking down slopes, shielding children and elders with their bodies even as they held up branches tied with white cloth, an entreaty to the soldiers not to shoot." Of course the military reneged on its promise of safe passage, and rounded up people by the thousands. Many of these ended up in mass graves. The novel contains vivid descriptions of these harrowing incidents. The following passages illustrate some of the brutality perpetrated by the South Korean Military working with the United States occupying forces.

This passage depicts events at a cobalt mine in Gyeongsan: "Over many days, military trucks drove in and out of the mine. There are accounts from residents of how the sound of gunfire continued from early dawn to the middle of the night. When the drifts and shafts were full of corpses, they simply moved into the hills and went on killing and burying in a nearby valley."

These scenes were observed by a witness: "I hid under a blanket and listened to the gunfire. All the while my heart wouldn't stop trembling for the children I'd seen out on the sands. There were women holding babies as young as my son, and one woman looked like she'd give birth any day....It was growing dark when the guns stopped....I peeked out of the door again. The soldiers were hurling bodies into the ocean, and people lay bloodied, their faces in the sand."

Kyungha and Inseon's conversation reveals that Inseon has been suffering just as much as Kyungha, but in a different way. Inseon grew exhausted caring for her dying mum, who was ill with dementia. Then when Jeongsim passed, and Inseon found her mum's files, the documentarian felt compelled to visit massacre sites and fill in the gaps in Jeongsim's notes. This left terrible images in her mind.

In the end - though Kyungha may be in the midst of a fantasy - she feels she can proceed with the tree trunk project.

The book is filled with imagery of snow falling, and in an NPR interview, Han Kang explains why: “Snow; It falls between the sky and the earth and connecting them both. And it falls between the living and the dead, between light and darkness, between silence and memories. And I thought of the connection, the circular flow of water and air. We are all connected over this earth so I had this image of the snow. I wanted the snow to fall from beginning to end and I wanted even my characters to enter into that dream of snow.”

I find Han Kang's unconventional writing style somewhat difficult, but this is a memorable book. Highly recommended.

Note: For decades, the Jeju massacre was a forbidden topic in South Korea. The military dictatorships that controlled the country in the second half of the twentieth century tried to cover up the event. Now, the South Korean government has taken steps to address the historical injustices of the Jeju Uprising, including apologies, memorials, and educational programs to ensure future generations understand its significance.

Thanks to Netgalley, Han Kang, and Random House for a copy of the book.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang is a beautifully written, atmospheric story about two women that involves the backstory of Korean history. Kyungha is asked by her friend to care for her bird while her friend is in the hospital. And Kyungha goes through a lot to get to her friend's house in the snow to care for her bird. This story was written like a dream, where the reader was unsure of what was true for most of the story. But it was so beautifully and atmospherically written, that it drew me in. I really enjoyed Kang's writing here and would definitely recommend this unique and thought-provoking story. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

Han Kang's We Do Not Part is a gorgeous, dark story about trauma that is told in sparing, haunting prose. This is absolutely the perfect read on a dark winter night, and will leave you contemplating your place in history and how humanity endures and survives.

At it's simplest level, We Do Not Part starts with the story of Kyungha, an author, who is kept awake at night thinking about the Gwangju that she's writing about. Her friend, Inseon, reaches out with a favor. Can Kyungha help Inseon save her pet bird, while she is stuck receiving medical care? The journey will force Kyungha to consider her trauma and work through the past. Gorgeous and haunting, I will be thinking about this story for weeks.

I just read a review by someone named Roman Clodia, and honestly, you should go read that one, because it is perfect. If, after reading that, you are still not convinced you should read this book, I will tell you this. I was confused at the beginning—confused enough to ask my daughter and husband what they thought of the plot as I understood it so far—I honestly thought I had missed something. And I had missed something. Thankfully, I kept reading. I did not know about the history King references, so a few internet searches helped. And wow. This book is a stunner. So many layers of friendships, family, and tragic history. So many things meaning so much more than they first appear. I am not, generally, a re-reader, but this is certainly a book I would re-read. If for nothing else but to begin with more patience, knowing that everything is not as straightforward as it first appears, and that in the end, in Kang's deft hands, I will be moved to weeping. A masterpiece.

I really enjoyed this novel. This whole story had almost a nightmarish, ghost-story feel to it that I really found compelling. The writing and the narrative voice was so interesting, and I really flew through this story. The meditation on isolation and pain, and turbulent nightmares set such an eerie, but interesting tone for this work. I don't even know if I could fully explain to you what I read, but I think you need to read it regardless.

e-ARC from NetGalley.

I mourn the loss of the person I become whenever I read Han Kang's writing. There's something so hypnotic about her stories. For the brief time I spend tucked between the pages, I feel like someone else. Someone better.

This is a work of melancholic, magical realism/psychological literary fiction. What I mean by that is this: You do not know what is real. It could be a character hallucinating, or it could be a story populated by ghosts, but you will never be granted the absolute truth.

We follow a woman asked by an injured friend to go to her village and care for her pet bird. She must go tonight if the bird is to survive. And yet, somehow, we find ourselves exploring the grief and trauma that haunts the land after the Korean War. We are witness to the atrocities and the remaining injustices. The impossibility of ever truly knowing someone. We feel everything and we feel nothing in an impossible amalgamation of past, present, and tje numbness in-between.

Kang's novels always leave me feeling changed & this is no exception.

I had recently read several pieces of literary fiction where the prose is both descriptive, yet incredibly boring at the same time. Han Kang is not one of those authors. Her writing is so hauntingly beautiful, that I found myself captivated by multiple pages simply describing a snowstorm.

Set against the backdrop of a village massacre that had occurred in the past and was a real secret buried in South Korean history, Kyungha is an investigative journalist who is tasked by her friend Inseon to travel back to Inseon's home village on a remote island and save her bird before it is too late. Plagued by nightmares and headaches, Kyungha's journey is filled with ghosts and an eerie isolation as she remembers the stories of the survivors of the massacres and the longing to find closure amidst the bodies that are still buried.

We Do Not Part is a quick, powerful narrative steeped in history and is deeply hypnotic. The themes are dark and devastating, and yet there is hope in her storytelling. It is no wonder that Kang has previously won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Recommended for fans of historical fiction and thought provoking literary fiction that will stick with you long after the covers of the book have been closed. 4.5 stars overall

Thank you to NetGalley, Han Kang, and Random House - Hogarth for an advanced readers' copy in exchange for an honest review.

i found the vegetarian remarkable, but i've loved the solemn reflections on human violence that han kang has published since even more. this book is deep and still and quiet, hugely emotional in the smallest strokes. it sneaks up on the reader in so many ways, and when i finished, i just sat with it. it's stayed with me since.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, Translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Thank you @Hogarth and @NetGalley for the eARC)

We Do Not Part begins with a dream: thousands of black tree trunks of varying height like a crowd grouped together in the snow. While this novel is fiction, Kyungha’s dreams started shortly after she published a book about the massacre in G— providing a connection to Han’s previous novel Human Acts (which I have yet to read). Kyungha shares this dream with Inseon, a documentary filmmaker and a close friend who is much like a sister, and the two begin planning to bring the dream to life.

I was invested on page one and while I don’t think this can be called a page turner I was mesmerized by Kang’s writing, compulsively turning pages as I wanted to see what she was building toward. This book provides so much to think about and discuss. I think what interested me most was the way she “built” the novel and story. This is a deceptively simple narrative, but everything is in layers. The description of snow crystals being bound together is where this struck me most: crystals continue to bind with other crystals, and if it weren’t for the ground getting in the way they would become infinite. This perfectly captures the story, with Han starting with a small speck of dust to form the beginning of the story then continuing to add and build as the reader's understanding of the past slowly expands. Everything is layered (the flame with a bluish heart seed and a beating pulse) and textured (snow on the skin, the soft feeling of cotton, feathers on a baby’s skin), and rooted in things that are visual (shadows and shapes). Nothing feels solid or concrete. The integration of the natural world along with texture and images and its dreamlike quality is difficult to convey and capture but I know that it will be a book I continue to process and think about.

As I continue to be in awe of how Han constructed this story, I also love how she explored relationships, both friendships and familial connections. The close connection between Kyungha and Inseon was beautiful but I love the complexity of Inseon and her mother’s relationship. The rage that comes with misunderstanding a parent and also the challenges that come with caring for a parent when they need care at the end of their life and how we wrestle with forgiveness and loss and ultimately an understanding that we cannot separate ourselves from the history of the people we come from.

I was not familiar with the history at the center of this novel and it feels terrible to say I am grateful to have learned about it. Doing so feels like part of the purpose behind this novel–to shine a light on atrocities and uncover what has (literally) been buried. As we remember the past, even with its weight, this is a book about the vulnerability of life and living: “What astounded me was the sun’s rays, that they returned each day.”

A story with a lot of imagery that is easy to get lost in. At the root of the story is the lovely friendship between Inseon and Kyungha. I learned about a forgotten chapter in Korean history. At times it was difficult to know what was real and what was a dream. So many vivid images and trauma are presented, but the prose is excellent. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

Han Kang recently received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” While her writing certainly excels in all of that, We Do Not Part also spotlights Kang's capacity for tenderness. The story follows Kyungha's quest to rescue her friend Inseon's pet bird Ama from a snowstorm on Korea's Jeju island. Along the way, the novel unravels and reckons with the aftershocks of violence and generational trauma following the horrific Jeju April 3 incident, a historical massacre that took the lives of tens of thousands of the island's residents. As we follow Kyungha on her journey, there are scenes that feel surreal and others that feel downright psychedelic, but what I loved the most about this book is its optimism in life and friendship, even in the face of the irreconcilable.

This book has a dream-like, disorienting quality to it that is extremely immersive. I liked the switching narration styles and all of the nature imagery (birds, snow, forest, etc.). The atmosphere had an overall unsettling effect combined with domestic moments that felt almost comforting in their familiarity. The first half of the book feels slightly different from the second, with several parallels being drawn between the two main characters. Prior to reading, I was unaware of the events that the book was describing. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a personal quality to the stories that are usually only told through history textbooks.

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever read something like this. What an interesting novel. I am left speechless, floundering for the words I want to say on this one. I’d recommend this to my serious readers, ones that dabble in many genres.

Tortured memories haunt not just those left behind but their descendants too in the aftermath of the April 3, 1948 Communist uprising in Korea. In this poetic account, the horror of mass executions of entire communities, particularly on Jeju Island, is explored in a way that lets the reader feel that time personally. The author’s writing is amazing, filled with beautiful metaphors and achingly poignant emotional moments.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth Press for the ARC to read and review.

I really struggled with this book. Kang writes beautifully and the historical event here is certainly important, but it truly felt like a slog. I struggled to get through it because I never wanted to pick it up and read. In the beginning, I was compelled to keep reading, but somewhere along the way my eyes started to glaze over. It was probably just the wrong time for me to read this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance reader's copy of this novel.