Honey in the Wound is a devastating and important novel about generations of a family ravaged by Japanese imperialism and the Second World War. Following each generation of the family, the reader is taken through the family has they are continually attacked and struggle to survive. This isn't a story about how hope and resilience are always positive, but how sometimes all you can do is claw your way to survival.

Honey in the Wound offers a powerful, painful, but urgently important discussion of the brutalities of the Imperial Japanese Army. Han does not shy away from the violence not only in the streets, but in the "comfort stations" (i.e. the military brothels), as she traces trauma through generations of one family. The respite that the author provides is through a touch of magical realism. Never will you be so desperately waiting for a tiger-girl to appear.

This book is haunting and hard to read. But, like the best magical realism texts, it presents to us a powerful social commentary that makes it urgent for us to sit with the hurt and discomfort, and reflect upon power, resilience, and the human spirit.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing an advanced reader's copy of this text.

my rating: ✦✦✦✦✦ — 4.80 stars, rounded up

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“In what she understood as an act of love, Young-Ja let him walk the paths he had chosen for himself. And while he enjoyed his hard-won prosperity, she would live out the remainder of her days quietly, causing him no additional worry or burden as a good parent should.”

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oh my god. this book DESTROYED me. this is the most disturbed, upset, and disgusted i've ever been with humans. my heart goes out to all the women who ever experienced the horribly traumatic events mentioned in this book.

Honey in the Wound follows a korean family’s magical lineage, as lives end and others begin. we begin with geum-jin and geum-ja, twins born in the early 1900s in korea, a time of relative tranquility and peace — that is, until the japanese seek to take over korea in increasingly hostile acts. when geum-jin, his wife, and two of his children are slaughtered, his last remaining daughter, young-ja, escapes and takes centre stage. the majority of the novel follows young-ja as she ages, going through atrocity after atrocity.

while reading this, i cried — for young-ja, for the assaulted “comfort-women” of japanese wartime, for each girl that took her own life in this novel, for how our school systems and teachers could possibly gloss over this heavy, horrible topic.

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this arc was provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review. a huge thank you to netgalley, avid reader press, and simon & schuster canada, but most of all, jiyoung han, who brings these atrocities to light in this masterpiece of a novel.

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tw
before you get into this heart-wrenching novel, please be warned that although it starts as an almost-whimsical, fable-like story, the topics quickly get darker and darker. trigger warnings include graphic SA, suicide, self-harm, depression, drug use, ethnic-based violence, and more. please take care of your mental health, everyone, and talk to someone if you need to. sending love to you all ❤︎

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stats:
graphic content : 4.5/5
emotion💧: 4/5
memorability 💭: 3.5/5
thought-provoking 🧠: 4/5