“The book’s implications were unlike any other, and I was impressed . . . It’s a thought-provoking book.” — RM
“I read the book and it changed how I think. Everything I’ve put aside, thinking it doesn’t mean anything, is actually because I am a woman. I realized how unfair it has been all this time.” — Sooyoung
“A cultural call to arms . . . Like Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Award–winning film Parasite, which unleashed a debate about class disparities in South Korea, Cho’s novel was treated as a social treatise as much as a work of art.” — New York Times
“This novel is about the banality of the evil that is systemic misogyny . . . Upon its publication in South Korea in 2016, the book, which sold more than a million copies, had an Uncle Tom’s Cabin effect, propelling a feminist wave. It’s easy to see why.” — New York Times
“As she unveils the lifetime of misogyny her protagonist has faced in South Korea, Cho Nam-Joo points to a universal dialogue around discrimination, hopelessness, and fear.” — Time Magazine
“Cho’s novel became a rallying cry for South Korean women . . . While Cho’s focus is on South Korean culture, the normalisation of violence and harassment in the book seems all too familiar.” — Guardian
“The novel’s virtue lies in its broad social impact . . . To read the book is to imagine being a restive, aggrieved millennial and to trace [Kim Jiyoung’s] path through everyday misogyny.” — New York Review of Books
“This tale has immediate resonance . . . Cho’s matter-of-fact delivery underscores the pervasive gender imbalance, while just containing the empathic rage.” — Booklist
“Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 has much in common with Han Kang’sThe Vegetarian.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“[Cho Nam-joo] pulls no punches in her delineation of cultural misogyny … The author’s particular achievement is in blending political and stylistic concerns in a cool tone carefully captured in Jamie Chang’s translation … Cho’s moving, witty, and powerful novel forces us to face our reality, in which one woman is seen, pretty much, as interchangeable with any other.” — Telegraph (U.K.)
“A clear-eyed look at damage done.” — Straits Times
“In this fine — and beautifully translated — biography of a fictional Korean woman, we encounter the real experiences of many women around the world.” — Spectator (U.K.)
“As she unveils the lifetime of misogyny her protagonist has faced in South Korea, Cho Nam-Joo points to a universal dialogue around discrimination, hopelessness, and fear.” — Time Magazine
