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March 25, 2005
Starred Booklist Review
All her life, Korea-born Lee Soon-Min has been told that her biological parents were killed in an automobile crash. (As an infant, she was adopted by a repressive but well-meaning midwestern couple who renamed her Sarah). In truth, Sarah was abandoned on the steps of a Seoul firehouse soon after her mother, penniless and jilted by her American lover, gave birth. When Sarah, now 19, travels to Korea, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about her past. She studies Korean, visits the agency that orchestrated her adoption, even broadcasts her predicament on a local television show. The author's use of alternating narrators keeps the plot in high gear, as the paths of mother and daughter seem destined to converge. Her colorful characters crackle and pop off the page: a restaurant owner with a "rosary of farts trailing out from between her thick thighs" and a malaprop-spewing Korean soldier who suggests that an emotionally troubled peer see a "shrimp." Lee, a Korean American, has earned critical acclaim for her books for young adults, including Finding My Voice (1992). Here she renders a grown-up gem of a novel where joy mingles with sorrow, and heartbreak is laced with hope.
Allison Block
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Posted by marielee at March 25, 2005 7:11 PM
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Posted by: Marie at April 5, 2005 5:03 PM