Each day, Kim Jiyoung—a daughter, wife, mother—wakes up as a different woman. We learn she knew each of them, though some are now dead. Who Jiyoung once was appears lost to this strange psychosis. The narrative comes from the perspective of Jiyoung’s male psychiatrist—complete with footnotes on real-life gender inequality in South Korea, which has seen Cho Nam-Joo’s short novel, translated by Jamie Chang, become a bestseller that has inspired many young women to reconsider the roles they’ve been tacitly forced into, and also prompted death threats from infuriated misogynists. That outrage only makes the act that finally broke Jiyoung after a lifetime of sexism all the more poignant, because it is something so small yet so big and, sadly, so common.
Buy Now: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 on Bookshop | Amazon
- Introducing the 2024 TIME100 Next
- Sabrina Carpenter Has Waited Her Whole Life for This
- What Lies Ahead for the Middle East
- Why It's So Hard to Quit Vaping
- Jeremy Strong on Taking a Risk With a New Film About Trump
- Our Guide to Voting in the 2024 Election
- The 10 Races That Will Determine Control of the Senate
- Column: How My Shame Became My Strength
