“I would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face.” As much as I enjoyed learning more about a different society than my own, it also gave me chills a lot of the time. I also learnt quite a lot from this book. The book was honestly very raw and we saw things here for what they really were. The sexism they have to endure at work and so many other aspects of their lives. The price and toll that adhering to society takes on these women as well. The way things are so differently presented to women and men. The unbelievable beauty standards that women have to follow. The book made me think quite a lot about several things which is what I liked the most. The book is character driven since we look into each of their lives and how they came to know each other. I was just interested in learning about these 4 women and the circumstances of their lives. Starting the book I didn’t really know what to expect or have any expectations. I hardly read books that aren’t fantasy based but this was one I knew I had to read. One that I read a few stories about here and there but that was about it. It not only sounded intriguing but it also gave a glimpse of a life that I wasn’t familiar with at all. I was really excited when I first saw this title. Thank you Penguin International for the gifted review copy! Together, their stories tell a gripping tale that’s seemingly unfamiliar, yet unmistakably universal in the way that their tentative friendships may have to be their saving grace. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the super-wealthy heir to one of Korea’s biggest companies.ĭown the hall in their apartment building lives Ara, a hair stylist for whom two preoccupations sustain her: obsession with a boy-band pop star, and a best friend who is saving up for the extreme plastic surgery that is commonplace.Īnd Wonna, one floor below, is a newlywed trying to get pregnant with a child that she and her husband have no idea how they can afford to raise and educate in the cutthroat economy. Her roomate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake with a client may come to threaten her livelihood. Kyuri is a heartbreakingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a “room salon,” an exclusive bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. “Even as a girl, I knew the only chance I had was to change my face… even before a fortune-teller told me so.”

Author: Frances Cho // Published: Ap★★ ★ ★Ī riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossibly high standards of beauty, secret room salons catering to wealthy men, strict social hierarchies, and K-pop fan mania.

If i had your face book review