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.

This book is about the cost of past sins; in this case the sins are national atrocities committed by South Korean authorities on its own citizens, but the costs and burdens are examined at the individual level. But it's also the story of a life-long friendship between 2 women that even, apparently, survives death. And it is beautifully told. The descriptions of the world are exquisite - the author's eye for detail is amazing - yet the tone of the book is slightly uncanny or hallucinogenic, especially in the final section.

This is a beautiful book, and it's easy to see why Han Kang won a Nobel Prize.

I'm grateful to Hogarth Books, NetGalley , and Random House Group for the eARC.

This is the second book I've read by Han Kang, after The Vegetarian. I wasn't aware until after I had read it, that it was a part of a trilogy, albeit standalone. In We do not part, Han Kang takes a dreadful incident in Korean history and weaves it into an imagery of poetic prose.
The story is told in many forms. It is narrated between two friends with flashbacks as interlude in between and at times like a documentary.

Subtle story telling has been interposed with vivid imagery and metaphors that can be imagined as two or more separate characters and incidents occurring simultaneously. Lines are omitted between human existence and spiritual, and you can never find out the difference. The book give the feelings of a devastatingly beautiful war poem, where the reader feels they are in the war, and times , a mere spectator.

The translated is brilliant, lucid and flows. It's a heavy, but required read, and says a lot in a short volume.

This book is beautiful and heartbreaking. It examines the generational trauma and grief of war and the atrocities that humans are capable of committing. The writing itself is poetic even while dealing with the gruesome subject matter. The descriptions of the Jeju Island massacre were heartbreaking. The heart of the story is the deep friendship between two women, Inseon and Kyungha.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely gut-wrenching. Beautiful. Han Kang did not disappoint with this one. This novel is in the same vein as Kang's novel Human Acts, this time about the Jeju Massacre instead of the Gwangju Uprising. The way Han Kang handles these tragic events in Korean history is unlike any other. She really demonstrates how much he deserved the Novel Prize with this one.

I haven't read Han Kang's other books, especially the Vegetarian, so I may have to go back and read them. We Do Not Part is beautifully written, and I am reading the English translation, but it's definitely not a straightforward plot. I visited Jeju Island last year and did a lot of historical reading, but if I hadn't, I would have had a hard time following it, and I'm still not sure I got all the symbolism.. Some of the story is told in dreams and visions, so you don't always know what is real or not. And it was very interesting, but the author makes you work for it.

We Do Not Part
By Han Kang

This is a strange book. Or maybe I just don't understand the cultural differences. But I found it very hard to follow. I really am not sure what the author is saying here.

On the plus side, the writing itself is well done. The story line, however, did not resonate with me. The two friends, the birds, the storm, the atrocities of war, both in Korea in the past and also in Viet Nam – all of these subjects merit thought. Just how they all fit together was not clear to me.

Maybe for a reader with a stronger background in Korean culture, this book would be much more meaningful.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for sharing this ARC.