Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is only 176 pages long, but it packs a punch.

This reads almost like a non-fiction book with real facts, written as a fiction book and I really enjoyed it. This makes me wish there were more books written in that style. So much more information would stay with me that way.

It's by no means an easy book to read. We're dealing with heavy topics such as gender pay gap, societal expectations, sex-selective abortion, workplace and educational inequalities and more.

This book is enraging and depending on what country or culture you are from, you will inevitably compare your own situation to that of Kim Jiyoung's. I read this as buddy read with my South Korean sister-in-law and got even more insights into this topic. Growing up in Germany I heard things like "boys will be boys" and experienced my male cousins growing up without doing the same amount of housework as my female cousins would do.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone and especially a book club or book discussion group.

There's also a movie that came out and it had lots of controversy surrounding it too, from hate messages on the female lead's Twitter account to a petition asking the president not to allow the movie to screen. You'll find lots of articles online if you'd like to dive in deeper.

4 out of 5 coffee cups.