I feel like this book would be most useful as a comparison to Of Mice and Men. It could drive some interesting discussion about privilege, race, and the portrayal and perception of neurodivergence. The book manages to maintain tension in spite of it's inevitable ending. The ending does cut off rather abruptly with nothing really resolved.

I was really excited for this book, but it turns out that talking about people with extreme intellectual disabilities does not translate well many decades later. I loved the parallels to Of Mice and Men, but the writing itself felt stilted and a bit cringe-inducing at times.

In this retelling of "Of Mice and Men", Georgia Kim, see George in Steinbeck's original, is tasked with taking care of her brother Leo, see Lenny, who has a severe disability. After an incident involving Leo in their previous city, their family is forced to move to the suburbs. In this new neighborhood, however, it seems that Leo and his family will still have to struggle with discrimination and misunderstanding on several levels.

I found the adaptation a little too "on the nose" and thought the author could have adventured beyond Steinbeck, particularly in terms of Curley's girlfriend and the ending. I also thought the author tackled too many social issues to make a nuanced statement about any of them. I did appreciate the messaging about treating people with disabilities as people -- that message is incredibly important and something I think the author successfully conveyed. I also appreciated that she wasn't shy about illustrating the emotion and conflict experienced by caretakers. But this text also attempted to tackle fat phobia, gender stereotypes, immigration, gun violence, and white supremacy. I'm all for social criticism, and I appreciate a sick burn on America, but tackling all of these big topics in under 300 pages means we don't spend a meaningful amount of time touching on each one.

Trigger Warnings: Racism, classism, disabled slurs and bullying

Georgia is a Korean-American high school junior who just moved to a new town in the suburbs so that her brother, Leo, who has significant developmental disabilities, can get better assistance. At her new school, she makes friends with members of the hagwon that runs in the back of the Korean barber shop. Her parents have a rough relationship due to the strain of raising Leo and Georgie does everything she can to help be a caretaker of her brother.

I slightly remember reading Of Mice of Men in high school - not every detail, but I remember the ending, so I was very curious to see how this book would go.

This book definitely deals with a lot that I honestly wasn’t expecting. Georgia takes on a lot of responsibilities in the caretaking for Leo and I was always forgetting he was the older brother - even though she talks about how he’s a big, strong young man. I’m glad her parents were aware of the situation though and had brought it up to her a few times in the novel because it does take a toll on her for sure.

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. I was rooting for Georgia and Leo and even though in the back of my mind, I kind of knew what would happen, I was still shocked at how the ending played out. It did come a little quickly for me, but I still liked the open-ending of it too.

This won’t be a book for everyone, but I still think it’s an important book that covers a lot of topics you don’t read about often.

*Thank you Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for a digital advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

This book has become one of my all-time favorite reads! I loved teaching Of Mice and Men to my 9th graders before I retired and was immediately drawn to this. And wow, I am so blown away that I can barely stop crying it's so lovely! Georgia and Leo are siblings in a Korean family and Georgia becomes Leo's "caretaker" in school when they move to a new area as Leo has severe developmental disabilities and, like Steinbeck's Lennie, is huge and doesn't know his own strength. Enough said. It's simply a beautifully told story of a family in crisis that no review could do justice to it! So read it and know you will be a better person for knowing these characters!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

What sold me on this book was that is was a modern retelling of my favorite book in school, Of Mice and Men.

It is indeed that, but so much more feeling involved. The book felt real, and incredibly emotional.

I am not a fan of crying for fictional characters, so I wavered between 4 stars or 5. Then I remembered the first chapter and waiting for her parents to have their first fight in the morning like mine did. It's a relatable book and I love that

A contemporary, obvious retelling of "Of Mice and Men." Georgia is a Korean-American high school junior who just moved to a new town outside San Francisco so that her brother Leo, who has significant developmental disabilities, can get better services. Her parents' relationship is tense from raising Leo and Georgia has a far from typical life, taking on lots of responsibility for her brother. At her new school she becomes friends with a group of mostly Korean-American students. Through these friends, she begins to see a path forward in her life, until tragedy strikes. Although parts of the book were strong, there were some plot points that I really questioned. Also, Lee could have been more subtle with her retelling and it probably would have made it a stronger book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Hurt You is a modern retelling of Of Mice and Men, which follows teen Georgia Kim and her disabled brother, Leonardo, as they must acclimate to a new small, suburban, white town after spending most of their lives in the city.

I don’t really know what to say about this book other than it hurts, a lot, which is exactly what I expected from an Of Mice and Men retelling. Even so, I found myself hoping against hope the whole time that the one thing I was sure would happen wouldn’t. Along the way, Marie Myung-Ok Lee tackles difficult topics such as racism, microaggressions, disability rights and advocacy, individual intelligence, and general human complexity. There is no one answer, no definitive opinion, but there is both joy and sorrow. And there’s no resolution either, really, which right now is making me cry (a lot) but I’m sure later it will make me — and hopefully every reader who picks up this stunning book — think, and question, and fight for change.

Not sure if I am going to review this one on my page as I had very mixed feelings about it. I am a great admirer of the author's previous adult and young adult work, but this was missing some of the qualities that I like most about her work. Lee's work set in Minnesota teems with a rich sense of place, but the suburb here is an exaggeration. That it was based on a real place, Sunnyvale, California, yet bore no resemblance to the real Sunnyvale, took me out of the narrative quite a bit. I wish it had been fully fictionalized. I also wish that it had been a bit more character-driven--Georgia, Leo, and the others had potential but it felt like plot--mirroring Steinbeck's--came first. And I also feel like there was a missed opportunity to more fully reframe Of Mice and Men's tragic ending--if not with a happier ending, with a longer denouement that teased out the many issues at hand. There is much that is admirable here--honestly, compassion, sharp attention to detail in many realms, its willingness to have moral shades of grey and also absolute wrong--but I was left wanting more.

This was marketed as anti albleist and Of Mice and Men-esque. This was not what it was marketed/described as. It was instead political anti-gun propaganda disguised as a coming of age story. Yikes.