I was never able to really know any of the characters or fully explore their personal circumstances.Īra is a non-verbal hairdresser, styling important clients like a KBC producer, and directly involved in the beauty industry.
All of these are fascinating - and, in some cases, horrifying - subjects, and yet I found myself wanting more depth and less breadth. It covers the Korean beauty industry, image and cosmetic surgery, prostitution, sexism, classism, and wealth (especially how rich men can use their money to control women). If I Had Your Face follows four different Korean women's perspectives. The result was a book that barely skimmed the surface of all the themes that it took on. But I think where this book went wrong was that it stretched itself too thin, tried to do too many different things and tell too many different stories, all in less than three hundred pages. It introduced me to several fascinating characters and it takes on the subject of beauty standards and sexism in Korea. In the beginning, I was really loving If I Had Your Face. You will be affected in ways you could never imagine.
You will keep doing things you never expected to do. You will not be able to save your money because there will never be enough of it. She does not know what this work does to you-how you cannot hold on to your old perspective. Together, their stories tell a 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.
even before a fortune-teller told me so." Kyuri is a 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. A 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.
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