Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

A Novel

By: Cho Nam-Joo, Jamie Chang - translator

Narrated by: Kathleen Choe

Vulture Best Books of the Year (So Far)

A New York Times Editors Choice Selection

A fierce international best seller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny.

Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A 30-something-year-old “millennial everywoman”, she has recently left her white-collar desk job - in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time - as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women - alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her discomfited husband sends her to a male psychiatrist.

In a chilling, eerily truncated third-person voice, Jiyoung’s entire life is recounted to the psychiatrist - a narrative infused with disparate elements of frustration, perseverance, and submission. Born in 1982 and given the most common name for Korean baby girls, Jiyoung quickly becomes the unfavored sister to her princeling little brother. Always, her behavior is policed by the male figures around her - from the elementary school teachers who enforce strict uniforms for girls, to the coworkers who install a hidden camera in the women’s restroom and post their photos online. In her father’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s fault that men harass her late at night; in her husband’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s duty to forsake her career to take care of him and their child - to put them first.

Jiyoung’s painfully common life is juxtaposed against a backdrop of an advancing Korea, as it abandons “family planning” birth control policies and passes new legislation against gender discrimination. But can her doctor flawlessly, completely cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?

Rendered in minimalist yet lacerating prose, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 sits at the center of our global #MeToo movement and announces the arrival of writer of international significance.

©2016 Cho Nam-joo (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Powerful story and narrator

I loved the narrator’s detached style of reading. It works and is additive for this story. This is probably one of my new favorite books. Subtle and very thought-provoking.

it’s all so unfortunate

it’s disappointing to consider how many lost goals, hopes, sacrifices made, unrealized and unfulfilled lives women have had because of the way they were born. their lot in life is decided for them before they even take their first breath. from kim jiyoung, her mother, my mother, my grandmother and likely yours too it’s truly an unfortunate thing to realize.

Mind Blown & Eye Opening!

Mind Blown and Eye Opening. I binge-read this and I'm speechless! Read this for a new perspective.

Relatable

While the story is a snapshol of the lives of Korean women, it's relatable for women in many western worlds, as well, especially those who were raised with strong expectations for the woman to marry younger and have children and do most-if not all-of the unpaid labor at home.

the pov is amazing

Honestly, it's straightforward to listen to, and it's scary the similarities that will happen in the US with many rights being stripped.

great book that causes you to think

i loved it. its my first audiobook and it was a great short but important one. i recommend it to you if you want to enhance your viewpoint on women

The Korean Feminine Mystique

It's strange that men are never called "masculinists", and it is usually women who, when they are honest in expressing the frustrations when trying to balance family life and self-fulfillment are called "feminists". This book reminded me of the landmark 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan. Friedan coined the term to describe the societal assumption that women could find fulfilment through housework, marriage and child rearing alone. The book sold so many copies in its first year because it struck a cord of truth, a truth that had seldom been spoken of before. Can a woman's life in Korea be so very different from what it was like in America right after World War II, when the women who had stepped into the workforce in numbers that had never been seen before, found they loved the work but when the men came home were told to quit their jobs and go back home 'where they belonged'? Women all over the world are still faced with the same obstacles but through hard work many of those obstacles have been overcome, but still the word "feminist" is still occasionally used as a term of derision, as if some people still consider it unnatural for a woman to be interested in standing up for her own life and her own identity. Hopefully conditions will improve for women in Korea, even as American women continue to fight.

The woman experience

Most if not all women can relate to this type of treatment from men. I can see why it has inspired a movement.

Must read!

Such a good book, such good narrator, it highlights all the same experiences women have, the world we live in and everything that hasn't really changed for the better for women. A punch to the gut, so good.

Great

I coul listen for hours and hours. Really good boook. It gives a different experience than the movie. it's deep and I felt that I understood things better. tthe readdiing is perfect and clear.