JULY 2012 - AudioFile
From the second this book begins, you know you’re in the hands of a professional, both in the case of the writer and the narrator. Christine Williams is an excellent choice to deliver this searing story of innocence lost and the underbelly of human nature. A plot that focuses on girls being traded into sexual slavery could easily be one long downward note. However, that’s not the story Jones is telling. In quiet but determined tones Williams vividly brings to life the character of Gi, a North Korean math whiz who grew up in the nation’s labor camps. Williams’s consistently gentle tone gives an impression of hopefulness that carries you along during the dark moments of the story. M.R. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
In Jones’s dramatic debut novel, 17-year old North Korean orphan girls, Il-sun and Gyong-ho, work hard and go hungry, yet believe that they live well because of “the grace of the Dear Leader.” Headstrong and beautiful, Il-sun begins an affair with a handsome, connected man who promptly sells her and Gyong-ho into the South Korean sex industry, starting them on a harrowing journey into human trafficking and forced prostitution, where survival depends on acclimating oneself to being a commodity. Their servitude takes them from South Korea to a Seattle brothel owned by the Korean mafia. With two other prostitutes, they endure beatings, weeks in a shipping container with little water and food, and the pain and daily humiliation of their work, only made better by smoking “hiroppong,” or crystal meth. Eventually Il-sun disappears, and Gyong-ho escapes the brothel to find her. Though the daring move may not save Il-sun, it could lead to a happier life for Gyong-ho. Jones’s well-paced story gives a peek into a disturbing, shadowy world, where women are sold and traded, but the author never effectively renders the psyche of his female characters; they lack dimension, and their pain and privation never feels as real to the reader as it does to them. Agent: Wendy Weil, the Wendy Weil Agency. (May)
Library Journal
This terrifying and masterfully realized debut novel about human trafficking and sexual slavery is not for the faint of heart and certainly not for young readers. One of its most impressive achievements is the rendering of main character Gi, who is brought powerfully and beautifully to life. A painfully innocent young North Korean woman who knows very little about the world except the privations of living in a modern police state, Gi endures years in a forced-labor reeducation camp in North Korea before being sent to an orphanage, where she demonstrates a genius for mathematics and befriends Il-sun, whom she describes as "all woman and springtime." Eventually, the two are betrayed and sold into bondage as sex workers in South Korea. Jones depicts both the innocence of his protagonist and the pathologies and violence of the South Korean underworld with great skill and emotional power. VERDICT Impossible to put down, this work is important reading for anyone who cares about the power of literature to engage the world and speak its often frightening truths.—Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
JULY 2012 - AudioFile
From the second this book begins, you know you’re in the hands of a professional, both in the case of the writer and the narrator. Christine Williams is an excellent choice to deliver this searing story of innocence lost and the underbelly of human nature. A plot that focuses on girls being traded into sexual slavery could easily be one long downward note. However, that’s not the story Jones is telling. In quiet but determined tones Williams vividly brings to life the character of Gi, a North Korean math whiz who grew up in the nation’s labor camps. Williams’s consistently gentle tone gives an impression of hopefulness that carries you along during the dark moments of the story. M.R. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A debut novel about the plight of young women in North Korea (written before the recent death of dictator Kim Jong-il), with its socio-political insights undermined by clichés, stereotypes, plot devices and sentimentality more appropriate within a romance or even young adult novel. The Author's Note provides an unusual warning: "Parts of this novel reveal the physical and psychological traumas associated with human trafficking and sexual slavery. Because of the graphic and mature nature of these themes, the contents of this book may not be suitable for young readers." A novel aimed at adults wouldn't seem to require such a disclaimer, but it's perhaps more fitting here. Particularly early on, both the tone and the subject matter seem more appropriate for readers of a similar age as the novel's teenage girls, Gi and Il-sun, who become close friends at an orphanage and a factory despite the significant differences that will ultimately distinguish them. The opening part reads like a primer of everyday drudgery and illusion in the totalitarian regime, where they learn that they live in a "Worker's Paradise," in contrast to the oppression of South Korea, where "imperialist Americans were harsh overlords." Gi is comparatively plain and boyish, with a gift for numbers (that she keeps to herself), while Il-sun is "ripening into womanhood in the way some girls do, like a bomb exploding." Though the two consider their friendship as "two halves finding unexpected completion," there is little doubt that as Il-sun's budding sexuality (whether ripening or exploding) leads her to sexy but dangerous men and ultimately to her pride in her sexual allure, she is headed for a fall. A very different fate awaits Gi, whose looks don't give her as much to barter for her survival, but whose mathematical gifts lead to a surprising conclusion in a surprising place. A novel for those who like lessons in international culture spiced with lines about "a dapper, flashy, dangerous bad boy whose smile had the effect of sliding her panties off her legs."
