The Long Season of Rain (Edge Books)
- Book Review,
by Helen Kim, Helen S. Kim
From Publishers Weekly
Growing up in Korea during the '60s, four sisters are all devoted to their dutiful mother and resentful of their often absent father, but it is 11-year-old Junehee, the second oldest daughter, who is most affected by the friction between her parents and her mother's deep despair. Like her mother, Junehee feels sympathy for the boy who is brought to their house after being orphaned in a flood. Others, including Junehee's strict paternal grandmother, scorn Pyungsoo because he is from a lower class. Junehee's mother silently endures demeaning treatment and tries to ignore ridicule aimed at the child, until the day she is forbidden to adopt him. Shortly thereafter, both she and Junehee rebel against restrictions of their household and their society as their long-suppressed anger rises to the surface. First-time author Kim's calmly but sharply observant narrative, written from Junehee's point of view, affords insight into another culture and into the more universal circumstance of an unhappy marriage ruled by a husband. A master of understatement, Kim conveys tremendous meaning between the lines. The emotions behind day-to-day conversations, gestures and events are as unmistakable as the compassion and sensitivity of her two heroines. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-Because her father wished for a son, 10-year-old Junehee has a boy's name. Her father, a remote, domineering man, is the catalyst for much of the sorrow in this compelling novel set in 1969 Seoul, South Korea. That year, during the changma, or rainy season, an orphan boy comes to live with Junehee's family, offering the girl a special friendship before he finally leaves to live with a family who wants him. The tenuous, then strong friendship between the two children is a counterpoint to the brutal relationship between Junehee's parents. Her mother, a contemporary woman caught in the restrictive values of a traditional family, struggles to survive. The woman's fight to hold herself and her family together are distilled through the eyes of a sensitive child. Vivid imagery captures each thoughtfully rendered character: spoiled Auntie, who wears red lipstick and shoes though they are thought immodest; Mother, who cuts her hair in a daring act of defiance; the unfaithful father, who admits, finally, that he has not been a good person. The narrative moves forward in appropriately formal diction and through the use of dialogue. The setting is well realized: the rainy season is so present that the pages are nearly damp. The themes of the value of friendship and love shine through. Despite the age of the protagonist, the book's thematic sophistication make it an outstanding choice for thoughtful YAs.Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MACopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 10 and up. Like many of the Edge Books, this unforgettable novel, set in Seoul, Korea, in 1969, will appeal as much to adults as to older teens. The first-person narrative is totally true to 11-year-old Junehee's point of view, but it is her mother's story that is the core of the novel. Junehee sees what marriage means for women: Mother had to leave her own family and become a stranger in her mother-in-law's house, with no rights, no control. Mother's suffering reaches the breaking point when her domineering husband and his mother refuse to allow her to adopt an orphan child she loves. Yet the relationships are complex. Father is mean, and society gives him power, but he is weak. His mother is unfeeling to her daughter-in-law, but trying to do her best for the family. Junehee and her sisters quarrel; the oldest, bossy one is a spiteful bully; Junehee is the responsible, nurturing one, her mother's successor. At times there's just too much local color and culture; even if food means a lot, we don't have to hear about every ingredient in every meal and how they cooked it. But as in Laura Esquivel's adult novel Like Water for Chocolate (1992), the domestic details tell a heartfelt story of women in family and community. Hazel Rochman
From Kirkus Reviews
Changma, the Korean rainy season, brings increasing stress to a troubled family in this long, muted tale of strong women and weak men. When Grandmother brings home Pyungsoo, a boy orphaned by a mudslide, only Junehee, 11, and her mother don't treat him like a stray animal, or despise him outright. His presence causes the already strained relations between Junehee's parents, who have four daughters but no surviving sons, to deteriorate further. Her father, Jungmin, even when not on a business trip, is seldom home; when he is, he's either harsh and arbitrary, or tearfully proclaiming himself a poor man and father. After Jungmin takes the family on vacation, then abandons them for two days, and Pyungsoo, to whom Junehee has grown attached, is spirited away to adoptive parents, Junehee's strong, competent mother disappears, leaving valedictory letters to Jungmin and each of her daughters. As in Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter and Suzanne Fisher Staple's Haveli (both 1993), the textures of daily life are skillfully explored, but Junehee is more of an observer than an actor, and the rest of the cast, aside from her mother, is either unrelievedly passive- aggressive (the men) or narrow and manipulative (the women). In the end, her mother's defiant act results in little and readers wonder, along with Junehee, whether anything will come of Jungmin's talk of emigrating to America, or if there's anything to the suggestion that he's hiding a whole other family. A stiff, distant, loosely structured story. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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