Each is written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control. Everything, from the three-decade occupation of Korea by Japan to the consequences of the Vietnam war, is explored with the lightest of touches and without losing sight of the central characters’ motivations and personalities ... an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity. The stories are painful and complex but never depressing. They show what it’s like to be an ordinary person with a painful past and an unknowable future, living out the years in the cold light of day.
Large historical crises form a thrumming undercurrent to the lives of these ordinary individuals ... moving ... Choi leaves the reader with moments that are equal parts jewel and hot coal ... Each of these moments is a painful gift.
There is a lot to unpack here: the dilemmas of wasted youth, depression, family conflicts, loss. But Choi and her frank, sensible writing set just the right pace and put just the right weight in the storytelling, so the weight of these themes is not belittled, yet it doesn’t make for an unpleasant or overwhelming read either. The display of the stories is interesting as well: it’s almost as if the characters’ awareness, or honesty, about their own needs is gradually increasing across the book ... Such is the grace and delicacy with which the characters open up themselves that the reader can’t help but be taken by surprise whenever they’re hit with epiphanies or moments of straightforwardness ... Choi’s writing is simple in its wording but filled with a great emotional depth that makes Shoko’s Smile an enthralling experience disguised as a fast, unchallenging read.
... carefully crafted portraits of women’s relationships and intimacies formed and dissolved over time ... the loneliness of immigrants is sharply rendered ... brimming with love and longing ... Rather than being gratuitous, reference to...political events serve to demonstrate how intimate relationships are interrupted, or transmuted beyond repair, by these larger events. Brilliantly conceived, the stories in Shoko’s Smile are emotionally raw and true to life: a compilation of a writer who has not only devoted time to the development of the craft, but who has invested in the deep observation of character. The resulting emotional portraiture is both extraordinary and moving.
... full of silences and absences, things left unacknowledged or unspoken. The reader—and occasionally the characters, as well—is left to puzzle out these gaps and infer as best they can what might belong there. Sometimes, this is possible. Often, it is not. The result is a powerful eeriness that animates the book ... These stories manage to be both intensely intimate and pointedly political. Readers unfamiliar with recent Korean history will learn something about it by the time they’re done ... It’s also true that some fairly major aspects of human experience are noticeably missing from the book’s purview. Sexuality, romance, and even strong marital bonds may have existed in the characters’ pasts, but they are more or less absent from their present-day lives. But this is of a piece with the melancholy that permeates the collection, one punctuated by moments of startling insight, grief, and even joy made all the more affecting for how hard-won they are. There’s no question that this is a remarkable debut.
Choi writes assuredly, her sentences direct and unadorned, yet the simplicity belies intricate narratives often hinging on unpredictable details--a nipple caterpillar tattoo, an Antarctic burial, a 1997 cassette tape. As they long, endure, transform (and not), Choi's exceptional women are well-primed for their close-up
