"Stone Angels" is narrated from multiple perspectives, including a woman in the mid-2000s and her mother and aunt from earlier times. The mother and aunt's storylines are complex and resonate with the human experience. The modern storyline follows the young woman's search for her family and belongings. However, her repeated focus on her sense of unworthiness and trauma was frustrating, although it effectively highlighted the theme of intergenerational trauma. Overall, the young woman's storyline was also enjoyable.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I've read another book recently about Comfort Women which is not the main focus of this book, but does spend a bit of time on them. It's good to see more attention being brought to this horrible time when armies stole young girls to use and abuse them. I was not a fan of Angelina, the main character in this book. She is useful to see how generations of Korean women react to each generation before, but she seems pretty lost and pliable most of the time as she keeps quickly getting involved with men and new projects while not really thinking about what she wants or doing what's best for her children.

The best form of literature comes from the existential conflict of a character at war with herself, and in Stone Angels we get war in sweeping charges and retreats with Angelina. We also work through an immersion in another culture, led by the character herself; Korea comes to us as confusingly as it comes to our protagonist, an American-Korean who seeks to find her Korean family and to understand what cultural forces shaped her mother and hence herself.

Stone Angels holds a family secret finally big enough to anchor a big book – the sex slaves taken and abused by the Japanese and unacknowledged both by their tormentors and by their own country. This isn't backdrop or political frippery—it's laid out for us through direct, horrific experience.

There are chapters of anguish and chapters where we take wing. There is dark lyricism (as in February 1945) and there is resolution (as in Gongju's salvation as she loses her unrequited love). There is nearly a Buddhist guidebook on how to recover a crumbled adult life from failure. The author takes huge risks in what is a novel of interiority, with complex structure and double timelines, and wins through. Stone Angels is a redemption story, and we all love redemption.

This is an important book you won't truck off to the book sale. Keep it and revisit it like calling up an old friend.

After her mother commits suicide in 2006, Angelina Lee uses the opportunity of a summer course in Korea as part of her doctoral program studies. She left Seoul thirty-five years before as a child when her parents emigrated to the US. She returns in search of answers about the crippling sadness that led her mother to end her life. It’s also an opportunity for her to examine her own life’s trajectory after divorce. Her excavation of the family’s past bring light to history dating from the World War II era Japanese occupation of Korea. Her mother’s sister was kidnapped and forced to become one of the “comfort” women brutalized by Japanese troops. The entire family suffered in unimaginable, long-lasting ways. Readers will cheer for Angelina’s courage as she persists in her dual missions, join her in sorrow for her scarred family, and admire her as she opens herself to a life that permits joy

Author Helena Rho weaves past and present into a compelling whole, telling a multi-layered tale of generational effects of trauma. In this skillfully wrought novel, she employs powerful scenes, lyrical descriptions of settings, and flawless plotting to create a compelling experience for her readers. I heartily recommend Stone Angels.

3.5 Stars

I enjoyed the historical part of this book a great deal, but the dynamics between the men and women, husbands and wives, not so much. The stories of the kidnapping of Korean women and what they went through at the hands of the Japanese was horrific, inhumane, and cruel.

Stone Angels is told from a variety of perspectives, from a woman in the mid 2000s to her mother and aunt throughout their earlier lives.

I particularly enjoyed the storylines and perspectives of the mother and aunt, as they were complex and rang true to the human experience (although what they went through is far from typical). The modern-day storyline was interesting in the young woman’s search for her family and belonging.

It frustrated me that the young woman focused so much on her same problems over and over-kind of an “I am not worthy” perspective. I’m assuming this was intentional, to show her being stuck in her trauma (and the intergenerational aspects of trauma), but it became a lot of what she talked about. Otherwise I liked her storyline too.

I really enjoyed this multiple POV book set mostly in Korea. I loved the setting and the descriptions of Korea. The MC is a woman who journeys to the land of her ancestors in search on answers. The story expands to include her mother and aunt, who she did not know existed. The descriptions of life as a 'Comfort Woman' are painful to read but add to the depth of the narrative. Overall, really great.

The premise and setting of this novel were very promising; however, the meat of the story did not deliver. I wasn't captivated by our main character's story and I felt it really dragged at times. I did really enjoy the historical fiction element though. Overall just so-so.

Fascinating, riveting, instructive novel about a woman’s return to Korea where she finds answers to family secrets and insight into her mother’s suicide. Very informative about the Japanese occupation of Korea and the history of the “comfort women.”

This is not a book for me. While the premise is a solid one--a woman travels to Korea to learn her family's language and to search for a long-lost/disowned relative--the execution is poor. The characters are flat and, despite the author's attempts to have the protagonist face her insecurities and trust issues, don't actually develop or grow. Some of the characters don't seem to have a purpose in the book, or don't make sense in the context, and there's an awful lot of willing suspension of disbelief readers are asked to have regarding everyday modern life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an advanced copy of this novel. I loved reading and learning the history of Korea especially the narrative of the Japanese occupation during WWII. However, I felt the author's depiction of Angelina life was excessive.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-galley! I really enjoyed this: I've been into historical fiction and non-fiction lately and have not delved much into Asian history, as I've been focusing more on my own heritage. The incredibly important and not often talked about issue of Korean "comfort women" the Japanese enslaved for decades was something I knew about, but I'm not that well versed on Asian history of the last century or two. This tells the story of Angelina, a Korean-American woman visiting Korea to discover more about her mother's family and kind of find herself, I guess I'd say. The story goes back and forth between her mother and aunt in the past, and Angelina in the present. Angelina is a recently divorced mom who's struggling with her mother's suicide and her life choices, mostly of men: she has two affairs while traveling, one with an old best friend who she "should have married", and with a younger Asian American man she meets. She eventually opens up to the younger, completely non-toxic man and discovers/deals with some sore family history as she searches for traces of her elderly aunt, who was a "comfort woman" kidnapped and enslaved by the Japanese. This bogged down a little for me in some of Angelina's parts and I got a little tired of the men and affairs-stuff, but her story was cohesive and I enjoyed it, especially the history!

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC for an honest review. The story revolves around 3 generations of a Korean family as lived by the women; grandmother, two sisters and the daughters. I felt that the story of Sunyuh, one of the sisters, was the most interesting and harrowing part of the book. She was abducted by the Japanese military during WWII and used as a "comfort woman". She was a sex slave and her time in the "comfort station", as it was euphemistically called, was hard to read about. I wish the book had centered on her life more. The parts that centered on her niece, Angelina, were unnecessarily long and I was not as interested. The descriptions of Korea were beautifully depicted. I enjoyed the story but it dragged on a bit too much with Angelina's love life.

I really, really enjoyed 'Stone Angels'.

It's a fascinating examination of how insidious the idea of Class and Culture can be.
How it can translate and impact the lives of three generations of women from the same family across continents and decades.
A story of loss, tragedy, betrayal and ultimately selfless love.

It's not an easy read. I like reading about other cultures and countries so I was already aware of the practice of the Japanese military to kidnap women and force them into camps to perform as 'comfort women' and the horrors that were perpetrated upon them. Even still, the details are ghastly to imagine. It truly was a HUGE human rights violation and subsequent cover-up. I was NOT aware of the true scope of the Sino-Asian War and the broad net that was thrown across multiple countries to steal such women.

I was also aware of the haenyeo free diving culture of the women of JuJu Island in South Korea and their efforts to support themselves and their families from the sea on a volcanic island with little rich arable land. A fascinating subject in it's own right that I've read and reviewed some other books on.

The genius of 'Stone Angels' is presenting all this information thru the lineage and memories of a single family of women.
Gongju, her third daughter Angelina (also Korean name Sunyah) and Gongju's long lost elder sister Sunyah (kidnapped at 17 to be imprisoned as a 'comfort woman.')

How the expectation of the perfect docile, submissive Korean wife and the act of 'saving face' for either family or husband ingenders guilt and denial that destroys two marriages. The pain that Gongju, and subsequently her daughter Angelina suffers from unfaithful husbands and their unwavering adherence to presenting a facade to cover their pain. Angelina's subsequent emotional awakening after finally accepting the hard truths of her actions, and denials.

(Some really, REALLY crappy men and one good one that may redeem the gender.) :p

I really, really appreciated the author's addition in italics of the translation for the various Korean items of food and drink, etc. immediately after the term. Really beats having to check an index at the back of the book or a footnote!

I've highlighted two passages in my copy that hit particularly hard with me:

"Sacrifice can be a cowardly act sometimes, and it can breed resentment and bitterness."

"You must live like you have nothing to lose, so you regret nothing."

Almost sixty revolutions around the sun and you think I'd know myself better than this. Every now and then, I like to step outside my normal genre because apparently I think I'm more cultured than I really am or that I should be. So I try, but I don't have many successes. This was a perfectly lovely story told in a perfectly lovely way. I think many will enjoy it. Me, I think I'll just stick with my thrillers, contemporary romances, and some occasional historical fiction when I'm feeling the need to get some much needed culture street cred.

This is a historical novel that takes place mostly in Korea. A woman is searching for her aunt who was taken by the Japanese during WWII and forced into service as a “comfort woman.” During her search we learn a lot about Korea and the war, about the women divers. This is also a love story and a story about family.

I had never heard of the “comfort women” before reading this book. Wow is all I can say for this story of Angelina and her search and the life she lived. Keisuke was such an interesting person in this narrative.

The charaa a caters and scenes were so well developed I could see everything in my minds eye while reading this book.

I highly recommend this book. It is such a great read!

Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.