I'll Be Right There

Published in English as: I'll Be Right There.

Whoever chose the cover of the Romanian version should be fired, and have his/her cover choosing privileges rescinded. Every other edition uses very appropriate pictures, but not this one! Guess someone needed to ditch a KDrama poster in a hurry...

In fairness, I should admit that I did very much enjoy groping the silky smooth cover, and the quality of the translation is top notch. I can evaluate this based on my non-existent Korean language knowledge, so make of that what you will.

That said, the need to complain remains.

I had actually wanted to get a travel guide for Seoul, but somehow or other ended up convincing myself, that this little novel would instead have to help with my trip show more planning. It didn't. My fangirling pursuits however, have widened to include Korean literature as well.

To put it in the most basic terms: this book is about death. It is a story about the people left behind to grieve, and others who pick up the pieces of their grief-stricken friends. There is plenty of guilt going around, both legitimate and perceived, that of course makes everything so much more difficult to swallow.

Interestingly enough, while a sizable part of the book deals with tragedy, for me it didn't feel like the main theme of the novel. Maybe I was influenced by the author's wish from the post-face, but I associate the story mostly with a mixture of happy and melancholic scenes, which made me fall in love with the protagonist's Seoul.

There were several passages where all I wanted was to climb inside the book and accompany the heroine on her daily wanderings. I felt like going out and getting lost in a town I've known for decades, hoping to fall through a metaphorical rabbit hole and end up in a hidden little village, where I could live peacefully in the slow lane.

There's also something to be said about the romantic atmosphere of (violent?) protests... though I'll probably pass on a hands-on experience there. Still, note to self: take artistic pictures of abandoned heaps of shoes.

Score: 4/5 stars

I was going to write a much more inspiring review, something that would express my confused feelings so much better. And yet I can only say this: I wish I could read it again for the first time. I wish to get lost again in 1980s Seoul. I wish to meet a mysterious girl with burned hands who'll slowly worm herself in my heart. I wish to snuggle her deaf cat, and I wish to attend philosophy lectures that will remain with me for years to come...

I don't necessarily look forward to all the pain and numbness that will inevitably catch up with my happy days. However if that's the only way to experience all the above, perhaps it won't be such an awful price to pay. show less

To be read and reread, definitely!
I am fascinated by Koreans, they have character depth, forgiveness ideology, and their stories are quite emotional.
I don't know where to start; I'm in love with all of the characters, with all of their goods and bads, they're very real. I felt physically there on the streets they walked on, the places they visited. I laughed, frowned, smiled and cried with them. But the crying was very different from any other literary crying I've experienced, it was a gradual overwhelming and lingering crying experience, and I LOVED it! I am ready to read more of Shin's books ♥

First I liked it, then I didn't like it much, but by the end, I loved it. We get to know Jung Yoon, and some of her friends while she is in college in Korea. We get brief glimpses of her childhood, and don't get to really know her or her friends, just what has happened to them. I found it to be rather depressing, but not in a bad way, if that makes sense. I wanted to know what happened next, and especially how it all came together in the end. I will read it again.

To me, I'll Be Right There was more of a feeling than it was a story. I wasn't reading words as much as I was reading someone's hard felt emotions. Reading and feeling, for a while, became one and entirely the same. It was romantic, tragic, cryptic, and painful. It was beautiful and it was ugly - it was honest.

This is a lyrical recollection of younger days in which the narrator and her friends were torn between intellectual discovery and revolutionary fervor, of the personal changes and tragedies that unfolded against the backdrop of political unrest, and of the academic mentor who made it all possible.

One of the best books I've read all year.

Ocho largos años de silencio. Pero, después de oír su voz, Yun no puede evitar que los recuerdos la embarguen y la transporten a la época en que era una joven y solitaria universitaria en Seúl.
Pero esa soledad se trunca al conocer a una pareja formada por un chico de aspecto decidido y una muchacha que se esfuerza por esconder sus manos quemadas y ocultar las heridas de un pasado reciente. Esos jóvenes marcados por sus dolorosas historias familiares, la soledad, el dolor y la pérdida, ahora se refugian unos en otros, también unidos por la admiración que comparten por su viejo profesor de literatura.