I heard lots about this book on Bookstagram, but I still went into it not knowing what it was really about (which is actually how I like to approach most of my reading). And I was so captivated by this story. I learned so much about haenyeo, Jeju, and Korean history. I am fascinated by the strength and determination of the haenyeo and will be looking up more about them.
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The relationships in this book are all complicated and intricate, just like real life relationships. See wrote about some hard topics, but how her characters handled them is more impressive. I listened to this book and Jennifer Lim’s narration was the cherry on top. Hearing the correct pronunciation of all the words I would have butchered if reading with my eyes made this book even more engaging for me.
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The one real disappointment I got from the audio book is that there was no acknowledgments/author’s note at the end. In books like these, where the historical fiction is so closely tied to real events, normally the acknowledgments/author’s note makes me fall even more in love with the story. I did google it afterwards and read a portion of it via Amazon’s Look Inside feature, and it made me appreciate so much all that research that See did for this novel. I would have preferred however that it was part of my audio book experience.