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A review by clarabooksit
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
“Your hunger will teach you what you’ve lost.” — p. 94
I’ve been mulling over how to write a review for this book for days. It’s short but wow does it not pull any punches.
When Koh was 14, her parents moved back to South Korea and left her with her older brother in California. For years, her mother wrote her letters and as an adult, Koh translated them into English. This book is those letters and Koh’s memories of that time. But it’s more than that, too.
She writes about ancestral trauma, abandonment, loneliness, resentment, discovery, family, love, poetry and loss. There are parts that read like a fever dream and others that are brutal in their starkness. The honesty here is breathtaking but there’s deception, too, because what is memory and what do we have to tell ourselves to deal with the choices we’ve made?
While each chapter didn’t carry as much weight as others, the beginning felt stronger than the ending, and the transitions sometimes left me confused, the prose absolutely gutted me, it’s so stunning. The writing swept me through time, place and feeling; it’s lyrical, haunting and evocative.
This book was gut-wrenching but beautiful. I want to recommend it but with caution for how devastating it is.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, eating disorders, emotional violence, war, grief, and abandonment.
I’ve been mulling over how to write a review for this book for days. It’s short but wow does it not pull any punches.
When Koh was 14, her parents moved back to South Korea and left her with her older brother in California. For years, her mother wrote her letters and as an adult, Koh translated them into English. This book is those letters and Koh’s memories of that time. But it’s more than that, too.
She writes about ancestral trauma, abandonment, loneliness, resentment, discovery, family, love, poetry and loss. There are parts that read like a fever dream and others that are brutal in their starkness. The honesty here is breathtaking but there’s deception, too, because what is memory and what do we have to tell ourselves to deal with the choices we’ve made?
While each chapter didn’t carry as much weight as others, the beginning felt stronger than the ending, and the transitions sometimes left me confused, the prose absolutely gutted me, it’s so stunning. The writing swept me through time, place and feeling; it’s lyrical, haunting and evocative.
This book was gut-wrenching but beautiful. I want to recommend it but with caution for how devastating it is.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, eating disorders, emotional violence, war, grief, and abandonment.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Animal death, Eating disorder, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Grief and Violence