When We Fell Apart is an unusual book recommendation since the reader actually did not like the book itself. However, the reader did find value in reading the book because it draws attention to different perspectives on Korea – especially when read alongside books translated by Korean authors born and raised in Korea.
About the South of Seoul Virtual Book Club
Looking for book recommendations? Welcome to the South of Seoul book club. We recommend a book every month. Such recommended books explore topics like 1) South Korean history or culture, 2) the complexity of cross-cultural life, 4) the exploration of life within the diaspora experience, and 5) lenses on Korean culture around the world.
Commitment to Accessibility
South of Seoul volunteers take book accessibility into consideration when recommending titles. We consider:
- Purchasable in English In Korea: Many translated titles can’t actually be purchased in English in Korea,
- Audio Version Available: Many people find audiobooks easier to consume.
- Online Versions.: International residents can’t afford to travel with many books and many books may not be available in digital form from within Korea.
Commitment to Diverse Lived Experiences
South of Seoul volunteers seek to put lived experiences at the forefront of their recommendation choices. When considering authors we look for such things as:
- Korean authors writing about their lived experiences in Korea.
- International residents writing about their lived experiences in South Korea.
- Ethnic Koreans writing about their lived experience in other countries.
Reading about Korean culture from a variety of perspectives may provide readers with a greater understanding of the country and culture.
Commitment to Supporting Mental Health
South of Seoul also includes book recommendations that support the lives and mental health of our community. This means that books may tackle the issues related to living between cultures. This may include topics such as culture shock, language, relationships, and more.
Book Recommendation by Lanae Rivers-Woods
February’s South of Seoul Book Club recommendation, When We Fell Apart, is brought to you by South of Seoul founder Lanae Rivers-Woods. Rivers-Woods founded South of Seoul in 2015 and has lived in South Korea since 2011. She launched the South of Seoul book club in 2022. This is her first book review for the South of Seoul Book Club.
About The Author
When We Fell Apart is Soon Wiley’s debut novel. Soon Wiley was born in Nyack, New York. He received his BA in English & Philosophy from Connecticut College and he earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. His writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and earned him fellowships in Wyoming and France. Mr. Wiley lives in Connecticut with his wife and their two cats.
My Experience Reading the Novel When We Fell Apart
When I read a book, I try reading the story with as little knowledge as possible about the author. I want to show up for the story without my mind clouded by preconceived ideas. I also don’t think that creative writing needs to be entrenched in reality. Authors should have some space to bend reality. Therefore, I had no idea of the author’s gender, nationality, or history when I started reading When We Fell Apart. In fact, I kind of just lazily assumed it was written by a Korean woman.
However, after starting the book I immediately started to question my approach for the first time in my life. That’s because I immediately started wondering about the author’s gender. sexuality, and relationship to Korea. The author’s female characters and an odd portrait of life in Korea felt, for lack of a better term, ‘off’. For me, the story left me with a strong ‘uncanny valley’ feeling that I couldn’t ignore. In fact, I couldn’t pay attention to the story or plot. It just felt wrong.
In the book, key social details about ex-pat life and Korean life were jarringly inaccurate, while others were correct but slightly odd. Every page I read left me feeling more and more like the author simply Googled “western stereotypes of Korean life” and based the plot on that. At times it felt like whiplash as we bounced between subtle accuracy and shocking inaccuracy. There were moments you felt the author may have some connection to Korean culture, but more times it felt like a person who had watched Korea from thousands of miles away through the lens of foreign moves about Korea.
As the book moved forward, I quickly realized that Min – the male lead – existed as the most developed character so I guessed the author was likely a cis-gendered male trying to be modern and write a queer female character (Yu-jin). However, the female lead Yu-jin felt like someone who could never exist. She felt like a 2-dimensional queer Korean person written by an author who had Googled things written by Westerner people about Korea.
Keep in mind, the above thoughts came before I knew anything about the author. After trudging through 10 chapters of When We Fell Apart, I needed to know more about the author in order to understand what sort of ‘uncanny valley’ I was walking through. Were my assumptions true? Was this book written by a man? Had the author spent almost no time in Korea? Was this book written by a very straight person writing a queer character of a different gender? Turns out I was right on all accounts.
In fact, while researching the author I came across one of the most red-flag responses I have ever read to the question, “Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?” He is quoted as saying:
By far the biggest surprise was that it was easier for me to write from the female perspective than the male. I wrote Min’s point of view first, and it took a long time to get the voice and tone right. During the revision process I really labored over his sections, whereas with Yu-jin’s chapters, the writing was almost effortless. It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but sometimes it’s easier to write characters that you have some distance from.
Of course, as an author, it likely feels easier to write a character of a different gender, culture, and sexuality because you can just lean into your bias. When writing characters that look like them, an author often feels pressure for honesty and accuracy in the experience. In my opinion, if a character feels “easy” to write it might be a red flag that you need to dig deeper into their experience.
In short, further research into the author helped clarify my uncanny valley feeling but didn’t help me enjoy the story or care about the story. However, I did realize the book has a strong space in Korean literature because it highlights different views on what it means to be a Korean author writing about Korea. It shows that the Korean lens comes in many different styles and seeing through as many as possible helps build a stronger understanding of the culture as it exists in Korea and in the diaspora.
You will notice that I have mentioned the plot of the book. That’s because I don’t remember it. My mind was too consumed by the uncanny valley and the thoroughly creepy main male character that the larger themes didn’t seem important.
Reasons to Read When We Fell Apart
To be honest, I have not disliked a book as much as I dislike When We Fell Apart in a very long time. For me, the book reads like a warning of what goes wrong when 1) men write about women, 2) people from one country write characters from another country, or 3) straight people write queer stories. In fact, if you are either female, queer, or Korean – When We Fell Apart may feel like a social, and cultural train wreck that makes enjoying the story itself difficult.
So why do I recommend a novel that I don’t like? Because reading a novel like I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: A Memoir (which digs deeply into one Korean woman’s lived experience) followed by reading When We Fell Apart brings you face to face with how the west stereotypes Korean culture and Korean women. Additionally, if you follow up When We Fell Apart with a novel like Nuclear Family (which is written by a Korean American who lives between Korea and the United States) you get an amazing juxtaposition of experiences that reveals why we need to hear stories FROM people and not just ABOUT people.
More Commentary and Reviews
Keep in mind, other folks have enjoyed the book and you might as well. In fact, make sure to read other reviews to have a more rounded perspective toward the book. We all come to each story with our own social/cultural lens.
- ‘When We Fell Apart’ is a powerful story about women in Korean society
- ‘When We Fell Apart’ Searches for the Truth Amid Devastation
Online Purchasing Link
You can purchase When We Fell Apart in English on Amazon.
Find More Book Club Recommendations
Did you like this recommendation? Be sure to explore our other volunteer-recommended books.
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Founded in 2015, the South of Seoul team consists of volunteers on three continents working together to support English-speaking people traveling or living in South Korea. South of Seoul volunteers work with organizations and individuals across South Korea to improve equitable access to information across South Korea. Much of South of Seoul’s information focuses on Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Blogs published under the authorship of “South of Seoul” include blogs compiled by multiple volunteers to improve access to standardized information unrelated to individualized personal experiences.
