b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa
A review of b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa.
“It’s very depressing to think that someday I, too, will be an adult.”
b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa (2020). Published by Two Lines Press.
As I venture deeper into this world of Korean literature, this book kept appearing again and again on my lists. And so when I saw that my local library had a copy, I knew I had to pick it up, I reserved it, and voila I had a copy in my little paws.
On Father’s Day we went out to eat, and since my family never talks at the dinner table—the rest of my family just likes to go on their phones—I ended up just bringing the book with me. b, Book, and Me is a really short book, and so I finished it by the time we got home two hours later.
Generally, I think I would describe this book as a slice of life with a hint of magic surrealism in it. Our main characters wander the edge of adulthood and youthfulness, but they critique how adults don’t truly seem to be living and lack the wonder that comes with being a youth.
I liked this book, and there’s not as much to unpack with this one so this’ll be a shorter review. Let’s dig right into it!
Blurb
Best friends b and Rang are all each other have. Their parents are absent, their teachers avert their eyes when they walk by. Everyone else in town acts like they live in Seoul even though it's painfully obvious they don’t.
When Rang begins to be bullied horribly by the boys in baseball hats, b fends them off. But one day Rang unintentionally tells the whole class about b’s dying sister and how her family is poor, and each of them finds herself desperately alone. The only place they can reclaim themselves, and perhaps each other, is beyond the part of town where lunatics live―the End.
In a piercing, heartbreaking, and astonishingly honest voice, Kim Sagwa’s b, Book, and Me walks the precipice between youth and adulthood, reminding us how perilous the edge can be.
Content / Writing
We never get an exact age on our main characters, but we can presume they’re pretty young, since the owner of the local cafe Alone refuses to give them coffee due to their age (but he does so anyways). They live in a sleepy town on the seaside, one in which everyone wishes they were living in Seoul.
All the restaurants and local businesses have the name Seoul in them, and eventually a shopping mall that sells American-style sweet bread eventually appears in this little town. Our main character, Rang, describes how every year the school takes a field trip to Seoul and how disorienting it is, how they want to cry as they get lost in the crowd of stern-faced people.
This is a book examining relationships between the people around us. Rang is experiencing bullying from the local baseball team, while b, their only true friend in the area, has a dying sister.
Other characters rotate in and out of the narrative, such as our main character’s parents and Glasses, the kid who wants to study in Seoul. b is poor due to her family needing to pay their regular bills along with the medical bills for her sick older sister.
b eventually leaves behind Rang because Rang exposes her family’s condition in front of their entire class, and so we basically are watching the breakdown of their relationship in this novel.
There’s themes of bullying, sexual abuse and assault, and, halfway through the novel, we switch POVs. We start with Rang’s point of view and so we, as readers, naturally sympathize with her, but then we switch into b’s and we get the entire side of the story.
However, I do think the story should have ended after we switched into b’s point of view, because the last arc of the book was honestly a bit confusing and undid the work that was done in the first two narratives. Personally, I don’t think the final arc added as much meaning as the author probably intended it to have, and so it just falls flat for me.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a quick read, and it’s not too bad (minus that last arc, but someone out there might actually like it). I think it gives interesting insights to relationships and family dynamics, as well as the consequences of bullying and unwanted advances from men (and/or seeking validation from the male gaze).
It’s about two teenagers who have been messed up by their circumstances in the world, and I think the novel does it job in conveying that quite well. Personally do not recommend buying a copy of it though, check it out at a library and then decide if you like it enough to actually own a physical copy.
