🌲WE DO NOT PART🌲 by Han Kang is a haunting remuneration of one of the darkest parts of Korean history. Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher, @hogarthbooks for the e-ARC.

🪨🪨🪨

This book focuses on a troubling, mostly covered up time period in South Korean history where suspected communists and their sympathizers were slaughtered en masse. The main character is battling terrible weather to rescue a beloved avian pet of her longtime friend who created an artistic tribute to these victims and the story surrounds both of these narratives.

I read this almost two months ago but have struggled to put my thoughts into words. As a contemporary American, I can't help but draw parallels to the fearful, inhumane actions of these South Koreans as I watch the current leaders of my country going down the same road of scapegoating minority groups to explain the ongoing economic and social issues facing us today.

What I see as the main premise or message of this book is that we must require accountability to the actions of our ancestors if we ever expect to evolve past our most basic, ignorant instincts and transcend the tribalistic "othering" that is so pervasive in our world. This book is devastating, inspiring, and will have you feeling all the feels.

If you are in the right headspace for this one, I would highly recommend checking it out. Kang's prose are profound and enlightening and I had to sit with all the heaviness at intervals in the story. Another example of why Kang is a well deserved Nobel Prize winner.

This book was superb, as to be expected by any book from Han Kang. While some of the themes were reminiscent of her other books - isolation, the marriage of history and trauma, bleak landscapes mirroring the narrator"s emotional state - it still felt wholly unique and gripping. Kang's language is always so stark but vivid, mercilessly drawing the reader into the story and remaining unflinching with what unfolds.
I was particularly drawn into the plot line that focuses on friendship and death, the relationship we have with our pasts, how those carry into our present. I thought this was a remarkable book, evocative and dark, a light of the violence our past and how it can be truly buried.

This is a searing, debilitating, poetic mea culpa. I wish I could know more.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. All the best to the author. I believe all programming was cancelled at a certain hour last year in South Korea, when a program on Ms. Han Kang was aired.

We Do Not Part is a devastating and surreal novel following an author as she journeys to Jeju to save a bird. This story revolves around the Jeju massacre in the late 1940s, but the heart of the novel focuses on the friendship between Kyungha, the main character, and her friend, Inseon. Throughout the novel, Inseon shares the traumatic events that happened to her family during the massacre with Kyungha.
This novel is a ghost story filled with thousands of ghosts. It's an examination of grief and trauma, not for what has happened to you, but what has happened to your family and people you don't even know. Learning about the atrocities that took place before you were born has its own type of devastation. It's a heartbreak that highly sensitive people, like Kyungha (and assume the author), feel even when they're extremely removed from the situation.
This book is not an enjoyable read, but I highly value my time spent within this story. It's the first time I learned about what happened on Jeju. I'm grateful to Han Kang for sharing this history with me and allowing me to feel it so personally through the characters of Kyungha and Inseon.
This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I highly recommend it to people who enjoy books that are introspective, surreal, and melancholy.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

A new book from Han Kang is a reason to rejoice. The prose is beautiful as always, and though it doesn't quite reach the level of The Vegetarian or Greek Lessons for me, I adored every bit.

How was this my first Han Kang!?! This book was incredible.

If you want a book full of action and plot this is probably not it. But the quiet interiority, internal analysis, and examination of personal and generational trauma and violence is so impactful and haunting made me devour it like I would a fast paced novel.

The imagery of snow along side the ghosts that haunt Kyungha and her friend Inseon acts as a cooling balm, cleansing the horrors of the Jeju Island massacre and the lasting impact it had on the inhabitants that remained.

This novel specifically explores these connections through women’s connections through family and friendship.

This novel is gorgeous and absolutely beautiful. Kang’s prose is so delicate and precise. I felt the unique beauty of snowflakes she speaks of in her sentences which felt even more poignant besides the violence and pain she describes in the history of the place, Inseon’s injury, and Kyungha’s illness.

Kang has easily become an auto read author after only one novel. I cannot wait to read Human Acts which is considered a pair with this novel. It also inspired me to learn more of Korean history because as I read I realized that this was a real history of this place which made me aware of how lacking I am in understanding of this part of the world.

Anywho this was exquisite. One of the first books to make me cry this year and even as I looked at my notes from reading I got misty eyed again thinking about it. I will not forget this novel and its emotional impact on me.

Han Kang’s We Do Not Part is a powerful, emotional novel about memory, grief, and human connection. Kyungha visits Jeju Island to care for a friend’s bird but finds herself unraveling deep pain from the past. The story beautifully blends personal loss with history, showing how we carry pain and love across time. I agree with the prestigious awards this book has been given.

Beautifully written with prose that was heavy on symbolism. I learned a lot about the Jeju massacre that I didn’t know before, and this book really made me feel a lot. However, I felt Inseon’s family’s story wasn’t interwoven well into the present timeline of Kyungha’s journey. I was much more engaged in the vignettes about the uprising and as a result, the dream-like passages about Kyungha’s possible hallucinations just felt like confusing interruptions.

Another masterclass in storytelling from Han Kang. WE DO NOT PART sheds light on a dark, often-forgotten chapter of Korea’s past while toeing the line between dream and reality. Hauntingly beautiful and quietly captivating.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang is an interesting dream-like read. I especially appreciated the imagery of the snow and the island of Jeju. Han Kang is talented at writing about horror. Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the eARC.

We Do Not Part was an incredible novel. I suggest reading Human Acts first.. I loved the ethereal writing and the uncertainty of what was real and wasn't. great nature writing.

Han Kang has written another novel using magical realism and the forces of nature to describe real horrors, generational trauma and making peace with the past. This is not a novel that will be for everyone. Much of this book exists in a dream-like state as the main character suffers from maladies both physical and emotional and in this case the horrors of the past are visited upon the bodies of the present. Kyungha is a writer of unknown age, who is all alone trying to write in a sweltering apartment in the heat of summer. We know that she had a family at one time and that her health problems may have driven them away, but we are not told anything else. One day she receives a message from a friend named Inseon asking her to please come. The two women had previously decided to work together to create a documentary project about the massacre at Jeju island, in which thousands of men, women and children were murdered in 1948-1950. Kyungha decides not to do the project, but finds out Inseon has been working on it on her own.

Upon arriving at a hospital in Seoul, Kyungha finds that her friend has had a woodworking accident and must stay in the hospital. Inseon asks Kyungha to go to her home in Jeju and take care of her pet bird who was only left with food and water enough for a few days. The main portion of the story begins as Kyungha finds herself traveling by bus and then walking miles in a snowstorm to Inseon's home. Kang's descriptions of the heavy snow, the wind and the black trees that resemble people give a creepy edge to this story. Upon arriving after nearly freezing to death, Kyungha finds the research her friend has done of the massacre and through conversations with Inseon or her possible spirit, learns about the connections between Inseon's mother and the victims of the atrocities. The book is difficult and it clear that the author feels the island of Jeju is haunted in a way by the bodies buried there and the fact that the government took a long time to recognize and identify the remains for the families. Kang's book "The Vegetarian" is one of my favorite books, and this book belongs in the same realm as it deals with the trauma that can transcend generations. The author also uses birds, snow and other depictions to relate to the emotional elements that affect her characters. I will be thinking about this book for some time. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC for review.

This is my first time reading Han Kang, and while I can appreciate her poetic prose and the emotional depth she brings to the story, I think I probably should’ve started with one of her other books. We Do Not Part is a beautifully written exploration of friendship and history, but I struggled to connect with the plot. The way Kang blends reality with dreamlike sequences adds a unique touch, though I found the pacing slow and the historical elements a bit hard to follow. Still, it’s clear why she’s so highly regarded, and I’ll likely try another of her books in the future.

We Do Not Part is an incredible novel. I learned so much and resonated so deeply with Kang's writing and the characters. All of her books are exquisite.

I got about 7 chapters into this one before I had to DNF. At first it was fine but it was just slowing down and I was not understanding the plot. I will come back to it eventually but not now!

I finished We Do Not Part back in February, and now that it’s March, I think I’m finally ready to share my thoughts.

Ever since I read The Vegetarian, I knew I wanted to explore more of Han Kang’s work, and I’m so glad I finally did.

We Do Not Part is haunting, devastating, and surreal. It will have you questioning what’s real and what’s imagined, but most importantly, it introduces readers to one of the darkest chapters of South Korean history. During the Jeju Island Massacre, 30,000 people were killed children, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, brothers, neighbors… the list goes on.

Kyungha lives a solitary life, plagued by nightmares, unable to keep food down, and reliant on medication. One day, she receives a call from an old friend, Inseon, who is stuck in a hospital in Seoul. Inseon begs her to travel to Jeju Island to save her bird, Ama. Within a day, Kyungha sets off amid a daunting storm, but when she arrives, nothing is as she remembers.

The imagery in this novel is stunning. I found myself mesmerized by Han Kang’s writings incluing recurring motifs about nature, snow, blood, bodies that weave a haunting atmosphere. This is a book best read slowly, allowing yourself to fully absorb its hidden histories, family ties, and long-buried secrets. I cannot recommend it enough.

Trigger warnings: Blood, mutilation, death, massacre.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an advanced reader’s copy of We Do Not Part.

I did not know what to think, or expect, going into this, as I have loved one of the kings books, and disliked the other but when I found here was a perfect mixture of her other book. The surrealism that didn’t work for me in her other book was perfect in this one, and the historical elements had accuracy and depth without giving any in quality writing.

This book is not an easy read, as we are diving into the events of a massacre, so knowing that going in should help to keep people from being surprised by all the various heartbreaking triggers. Kang was excellent, she messages to inform, while also writing some thing that reads like poetry. Her books often gave me the sense that I was not intelligent enough for them, and at times I wondered if that was the intended effect, but in this case, I think she struck a cord that was perfectly in between. intellect and emotion

I’ll switch not easy times there are many heartbreaks in our names but I don’t think he done characters in rank show me smile in spite of the horrors that surrounded them, I love one of them can teach me something now and I pick up historical fiction hoping for that each time and often the setting is more of a factor backdrop then a fully realized, setting or environment, but that was not the case here at all, and this was nearly if I start Reid, but not quite sure, others will feel that it is worthy of the five stars, but for me personally, it was missing certain investment. I found a rating to be beautiful, but there was some distance between myself and the characters. and I could not seem to bridge.

Kyungha is living in Seoul and considering suicide, but can't figure out who will bear responsibility for arranging her affairs. Her depression stems from her work documenting the Gwangyu student protests and the violent reprisals that followed. She's cut ties with everyone, even lost touch with her best friend, a woman who worked as a photographer when she was a journalist and who eventually left her job to move back to the island of Jeju to care for her elderly mother. Then she receives a call to come see her old friend, Inseon, now in a hospital in Seoul.

Her friend, who became a woodworker after her mother's death, has been injured in an accident and needs Kyungha to rush to her faraway home to take care of her bird, who has been without food or water and who will die unless Kyungha can get there quickly. She sets out for the island, her plane landing in a snowstorm, the buses that she needs to get there are barely running and even when she does finally reach her stop, she'll have a long walk in the snow and dark to reach her friend's isolated house.

This story follows Kyungha as she travels to Inseon's house and the path of this novel seems straightforward, but what is really happening is a look at trauma, how it affects the survivors and also the people who research the horrors of the Korean War and of the repressive dictatorship that followed. Just as Kyungha can't escape the knowledge of and the images in her mind of the mass graves, neither can Inseon escape what happened on the island of Jeju, where tens of thousands were massacred in an elimination campaign that included infants and children, an event that scarred the island and her parents.

This is a gorgeously written book, where every sense is evoked, which makes the emotional impact of what is being illuminated harder to read. Lingering over the beauty of the language, when what the language is describing atrocity makes for reading that punches hard, but elegantly. There's a sense of unreality, as the reader and Kyungha struggle to differentiate between memory, hallucination and reality and as what is actually happening to Kyungha becomes more difficult to figure out, the impact of the history that haunts them becomes stronger. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time and it makes a good companion to her earlier book Human Acts.

I found this book to be hard to categorize. It's surreal, tragic, horrifying, haunting, and sometimes just plain weird. The prose is beautiful, and conjures powerful images.

The story opens with Kyungha and her solitary life. She receives a call from Inseon, a friend and sculptor, who is in a hospital after a terrible accident. Inseon asks Kyungha to travel to Inseon's home on the island of Jeju, and feed and water her budgie. Kyungha travels by bus through a snowstorm, and this is when the story begins to feel more and more like a dream. Author Han Kang repeatedly moves from Kyungha's present, and her arrival at Inseon's home, to the past, when soldiers were brutalising and killing innocents.

The heavy snow casts an otherworldly air to the story, and it becomes increasingly hard to tell what is real and what isn't, even while we're shown how the terrible moments in the past have a very personal connection to the present.

It's easy to believe that something like the horrors Kang describes could not happen again, but they do, repeatedly, and it's important to remember.

The story is heartbreaking and immersive. I needed to take breaks while reading, but kept getting drawn back. I was impressed by Kang's skill and ability to evoke such moving scenes.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Random House Publishing Group - Random House for this ARC in exchange for my review.

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.