The Starlet and the Spy

by Ji-min Lee

Historical fiction, based on true events, about two women who seem the most unlikely to ever meet: Alice, a Korean war survivor and translator for the American forces in Seoul, and Marilyn Monroe, who is visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour.

February 1954. Although the Korean War armistice was signed a year ago, most citizens of Seoul still battle to return to some semblance of normalcy. Conditions are dismal. Children beg for food, and orphanages are teeming. Alice J. Kim, a Korean translator and typist for the American forces still sanctioned in the city, yearns for the life she used to live before her country was torn apart.

Then Alice’s boss makes an announcement—the American movie star Marilyn Monroe will be visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour, and Alice has been chosen as her translator. Though intrigued, Alice has few expectations of the job—what could she and a beautiful actress at the peak of her fame possibly have to talk about? Yet the Marilyn she meets, while just as dazzling and sensual as Alice expected, is also surprisingly approachable.

As Marilyn’s visit unfolds, Alice is forced into a reckoning with her own painful past. The Starlet and the Spy is a portrayal of unexpected kinship between two very different women, and of the connections that can change, or even save, a life.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, War, Audiobook, Asia, Asian Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2009

About the author

Ji-min Lee is a screenwriter in Korea and the author of several novels. She made her literary debut by winning the Munhakdongne New Writer Award in 2000 for her novel Modern Boy. The novel was adapted into a movie of the same name in 2008. Her notable works include the novels Despair is Taboo, Marilyn and I, and Youthful Extremes, and the short story collection He Asks Me to See Him Off.

Reviews

[Britta Böhler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the Marilyn-part was a bit forced and felt rather superfluous, the story of a young woman during the Korean war would have been powerful enough on its own.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the audiobook again while browsing for something new to read and I remembered that I've listened to it before but wanted to do a relisten. Like I said before Marilyn is definitely the one who compels you to pick the book up in the first place. But Alice is the sole heroine of the book and definitely shines lighter then Marilyn in this book. Which isn't something that it easily done I guess. An very intriguing and emotional read with a lot of ups and downs. Added a star this time around
--

Set it 1954 it follows Alice, former Kim ae-sun as she starts to be Marilyn Monroe's translator in Seoul during the Korean War and the unlikely friendship that forms between them. This was beautiful and emotional and I'm very happy I finally decided to listen to it. Feels like I've been thinking to read it for years now but never got around to it. Marilyn Monroe was what got me interested in the book but it was Alice that made me continue on with it and enjoy it as much as I did and I don't know why but the end just got to my heart strings.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

February 12, 1954 I go to work thinking of death.
...
I avoid the eyes of the begging orphans wearing discarded military uniforms they’ve shortened themselves. The abject hunger in their bright eyes makes my gut clench.

이지민's "나와마릴린" has been translated by Chi-Young Kim - best known for 신경숙's (Kyung-Sook Shin) Please Look After Mom as well as books by 김영하 (Young-Ha Kim) as Marilyn and Me.

That's a direct translation of the original title, but in the US the book is being published as The Starlet and the Spy, which gives the book a rather misleading flavour.

The novel opens in South Korea in February 1954, just 6.5 months after the 27 July 1953 armistice that halted the bloody Korean War, but with military tensions still high, American troops present in force, and the country itself completely devastated.

That month, in history as well as in the novel, Marilyn Monroe took a detour from her honeymoon in Japan with Joe DiMaggio to visit the US troops. Monroe herself is recorded as having said that the trip "was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never felt like a star before in my heart. It was so wonderful to look down and see a fellow smiling at me," and she is seen here performing:



(more photos can be found at https://mashable.com/2016/08/21/maril...)

The novel itself is narrated in the first person by Alice J. Kim, an Anglicised version she has taken of her birth name:

I am Alice J. Kim —my prematurely gray hair is dyed with beer and under a purple dotted scarf, I’m wearing a black wool coat and scuffed dark blue velvet shoes, and my lace gloves are as unapproachable as a widow’s black veil at a funeral. I look like a doll discarded by a bored foreign girl. I don’t belong in this city, where the ceasefire was declared not so long ago, but at the same time I might be the most appropriate person for this place.
...
Very few know my real name, or why I discarded Kim Ae-sun to become Alice.

Alice is clearly very troubled: the lace gloves hide scarred hands, and early on she confesses to a friend trying to reach out to her, and so to the reader:

You can’t understand my pain. Do you know why? I’ve killed. I’ve killed a child . And then I went insane and tried to kill myself. I failed at doing that so I went crazy.

Alice has been chosen as the translator and companion for Marilyn Monroe on her trip and the story alternates between an account of Monroe's trip and Alice's own flashbacks, rather carefully controlled and drip-fed to the reader, as to how she ended up in this place, and what she means by her comments above.

The flashbacks give us some historic context, particularly the hand-over from Japanese colonial rule to US military occupation in the South, and a divided country, and how centrist attempts to build a one-nation democracy were squashed by extremists on both sides:

Everything remained the same, except the flag flying in front of the former Japanese Government General of Korea building had changed from the Japanese flag to the American one.
...
My political involvement was limited to supporting Yo Unhyong solely because of his resemblance to leading men in black-and white Hollywood films; when he was assassinated I was crushed that we wouldn’t see such a good, handsome politician in all of Korea any time soon.

But much of the story is very personal to Alice, who, in Seoul when the war broke out finds herself thrown from American rule, to North Korean occupation and back again as Seoul changes hands rapidly in a succession of battles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...), and she also finds herself displaced both to the North and then later to the enclave around Busan in the southwest.

The dripping of information finally leads us in the closing pages to what she did - although her own culpability in the terrible events described is rather less than her dramatic confession in the opening pages suggests. In terms of narrative tension this makes for something of an anti-climax, but it rather effectively shows how someone can punish themselves over unjustified guilt.

In the present day story we get only limited insights into Monroe herself. The narrator/author is keen to show her human side - the goosebumps as she performs in the freezing conditions wearing a short dress, her reliance on pills to get a good night's sleep, her tired waking face before she puts on her make-up and transforms into the glamorous stars the troops are clamouring to see - but Marilyn doesn't open up to Alice, and the author chooses not to speculate, about the health of a marriage where the couple end up honeymooning in different countries, other than a throwaway joke: The baseball diamond is clearly not a girl’s best friend.

There is also a present-day spy story in which Alice is caught up, with links back to her past, but this feels rather peripheral - hence my comment on the misleading US title.

As the real focus of the novel here is Alice, and how, as someone whose life was destroyed in the war and by her residual guilt, her relationship with Marilyn Monroe, the most glamorous woman in the world, helps her to decide to move forward and live. As the author says in an afterword:

"All women who survived war had the right to revel in being alive, dancing and singing like Marilyn. It made me understand the women who frequented the dance halls in post-war Korea, which was a hotly debated issue at the time. Maybe they were emitting light and embracing life because they had experienced death. I wanted to write about the women who struggled to come alive.

Overall - this is not my usual fare: my favourite Korean authors are more modernist ones like Bae Suah and Han Kang, as well as Yi Munyol, and it's not a novel I would have read if not K-literature, so I am not best placed to appraise it. But a well-written story, describing both an unusual historical moment (when I first saw the title I assumed Marilyn Monroe's visit was fictitious) and given an worthwhile psychological insight into the effect of the war on young Korean women's lives and loves.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

[Connie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's 1954 in Seoul and Alice J. Kim, a Korean translator for the Americans, is barely surviving emotionally. We slowly find out about a love triangle, and the Korean War through flashbacks and letters. Alice is still suffering from guilt and despair.

Alice is assigned to be the translator when Marilyn Monroe visits Korea on a USO tour to entertain the troops. Although Marilyn plays a minor role in this book, there is a connection between the two troubled women.

This was a heartbreaking portrait of Korean citizens used as pawns by various political groups. However, I did not feel a strong emotional connection to any of the characters. This may be due to the short length of the book, and because so much important information was withheld until a revealing letter near the end of the story.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An emotional read about survival in the face of trauma set in 1954 just after the Korean war and with flashbacks to events in the run-up to, and during, the war itself. The surprising element is the presence of Marilyn Monroe on a brief tour of American bases, entertaining the troops and, unknowingly, giving Alice a glimpse of joy and life.

Mostly the writing is clear and involving but there are way too many stretched similes which give a fake, try-hard edge to the prose - they fall off towards the end, could be red-pencilled throughout to make the writing cleaner.

It's admirable that the author has packed so much feeling into so few pages (just 176) without it feeling rushed or superficial - an emotive, haunting read.

Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important contribution to fictional war stories, based on real events. Americans have not been exposed to many stories about the Korean War, especially from the pov of a Korean survivor. Chi-Young Kim translates this brief, powerful novel and does it justice.

This is mainly about the after effects of the war on women. Lee writes: "Girls with tragic fates are merely a small segment of the people who make up the city. The light they emit in order to hide their shame turns the city even more dazzling at night." Alice, her main character, says this of her mother: "When I learned [that she died] my heart shattered, but later I decided it was better that way; at least she didn't have to live through the war. I cried and buried her in my heart." I loved this last line. When we don't have a body to mourn over, which happens too often during war, we have to bury the loved one away in our hearts.

There are the horrific stories of course, and Lee also skirts with issues of creativity as Alice is an artist. The story weaves back and forth in time, a bit of mystery unfolding. I also loved her line: "Man is the enemy of man." So true.

What did not work for me was the addition of Marilyn Monroe. Sometimes writers have to learn to kill what inspired them to write the book. I think this would have been a much more powerful book without the almost commercial nod to Marilyn, who appears briefly and feels forced and not real. Perhaps she felt it would sell more books or make for a better film. I would have preferred her loss to more layers and depth in Alice. And a clearer resolution. Alice ends with looking for someone, and we don't know if it's a young girl or a young man. At least I couldn't figure it out.

Still, a well-written war novel.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story had so much potential but unfortunately fell flat for this reader. Alice J. Kim (Monroe's assigned interpreter) is the narrator of this story which is more about the impacts of war on Kim herself than her relationship with Marilyn. Through a series of flashbacks to earlier in the war we learn Alice's story while she interprets for Monroe in the present day of the novel. But the so-called "relationship" with Monroe is underdeveloped and provides a flimsy link to the past. Overwritten at times - there were at least two weird similes a page in the first chapter - and just not all that engaging.

Thank you Netgalley and 4th Estate for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Gedankenlabor · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Marilyn und ich“ von Ji-Min Lee ist ein ganz interessantes Buch gewesen im Hinblick auf die Nachkriegszeiten in Korea. Letztlich hat es mir aber sehr an Tiefe gefehlt... ich hatte mir ursprünglich auch viel mehr Marilyn erhofft und vorgestellt, letztlich belief es sich ja nur auf wenige Szenen und wenig im Bezug auf Marilyn Monroe. Eben auch Alice, unsere Protagonistin blieb für mich eher oberflächlich und so kam mir die gesamte Geschichte nicht so nah...
Wer sich mit der Kriegs- & Nachkriegszeit in Korea näher beschäftigen möchte, der findet hier aber denke ich einen ganz interessanten Roman zum Thema.
>>Ich tauche ein in die tiefe Finsternis einer Stadt, die zusammen mit den Gewehrkugeln all das Schöne ihrer Bewohner verschluckt hat....<<

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I'm being honest, the cover sold me on this book. More than 50 years after her death, Marilyn still shines and draws people in. This book reminded me of "My Week With Marilyn." The setting is drastically different, though. Another reason I picked up this historical fiction read was that it gives insight into the Korean War from a Korean author. Alice, our narrator, has been used up and spit out by the major players in the conflict. Her week hosting Marilyn dredges up her past experiences before and during the crisis. Will the time spent with the iconic Marilyn Monroe make an impact on Alice's life and her postwar plans? Read this book and immerse yourself in the 1950's Korea that Alice knew.

Thank you to Harper Collins and NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Shannara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alright, so I had this big long review written out and something happened and it is now gone. I don’t have the energy to write it all out again, so I’m going to be way more concise instead.

This was a really good book, but by no means provided the happy ending I was hoping for. Watch out for the following TWs: gruesome deaths, horrible deaths of children, infidelity and general human shitty-ness.

I do recommend this book, but mainly to those wanting to learn general info about the people who experienced the Korean War firsthand and what may have happened to them afterwards.

Oh and be prepared for some seriously sad stuff. Cause yeah, there’s lots of sadness associated with wars, and this one is not an exception.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is February 1954 and Marilyn Monroe is about to interrupt her honeymoon to make a brief trip to Korea to entertain the US troops stationed there.

This is not just the starting point for this book, but is also a historical event. There are pictures here: https://mashable.com/2016/08/21/maril....

Meanwhile, a Korean woman with a troubled past is selected to be a translator for Monroe and to accompany her during the whirlwind tour. This woman is our narrator: Alice J. Kim which is a name she has adopted in preference to her Korean name Kim Ae-sun. This is one of the hints we get that there is trouble in the past:

Very few know my real name, or why I discarded Kim Ae-sun to become Alice.

So begins a story that track two threads gradually bringing them together. In the novel’s present day, the narrator spends time with Monroe and we watch as Monroe struggles to hold it all together but, more importantly for the book, Alice’s past begins to catch up with her with some figures from that past gradually re-appearing. In the novel’s recent past, we learn about the events that lead to Alice describing herself like this:

I am Alice J. Kim —my prematurely gray hair is dyed with beer and under a purple dotted scarf, I’m wearing a black wool coat and scuffed dark blue velvet shoes, and my lace gloves are as unapproachable as a widow’s black veil at a funeral. 

Why is she prematurely gray? Why does she wear lace gloves? The answers to those, and other, questions are told in a sad story.

The story about Alice’s past feels well-developed if slightly predictable. The side stories about Marilyn (which give the book its UK title) and about spies (which give the book it’s American title) feel very under-developed.

I was left, I have to admit, slightly dissatisfied at the end of the book. The main story is revealed one step at a time to the reader which means, in effect, that the reader can always make a good guess about what the next development will be (and it is normally the one you would expect). The one thing that isn’t obvious to guess rather takes the sting out of Alice’s guilty feelings and makes the end of the story a bit of an anti-climax (although it also serves to demonstrate the effect of war and trauma on a person's psyche). And the other stories that surround this main story don’t seem to ever develop into much.

I enjoyed some of the writing. For example, this made me smile when Alice is using a typewriter:

Startled, my finger presses down on the Y key, making a line of small bird footprints on the paper.

And I appreciated this image:

Just thinking about that time is exhausting; my memories of the war are landmines.

And there are many other arresting sentences. It’s just that, for me, the whole becomes less than the sum of all those parts.

2.5 stars rounded up.

My thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

[Jovi Ene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marilyn Monroe este aici doar un pretext sau doar un personaj secundar (sunt relatate spectacolele sale din Coreea anului 1954) într-o poveste cutremurătoare de dragoste și război. Suntem la finalul războiului coreea și tânăra Alice J. Kim, îmbătrânită și albită prematur, trăiește doar din amintiri și cu speranța de a-și regăsi fetița pe care a pierdut-o în timpul luptelor. Numai că disperarea și nebunia sa ascund fapte îngrozitoare, amintiri triste și o poveste de iubire (sau mai multe?) care s-a sfârșit tragic. Venirea lui Marilyn Monroe o obligă să le dezvăluie, într-un roman ok, din care înțelegem mai bine ororile cu care vine fiecare război, un crâmpei din istoria plină de suferințe a formării celor două Corei de după cel de-al doilea război mondial.

[Alice-Elizabeth (Prolific Reader Alice)]

DNF at 1 hour, 15 mins into the audiobook! (Credit to the app BookBeat UK for providing a copy to download from their collection.)

I thought this would be full of content involving the famous actress Marilyn Monroe. Instead, I found the story-line to be lacking in mentions, even actions of her meeting the main character. There were some elements that I did find triggering such as discussions of suicide and miscarriage. I'm always looking for new fiction to read, sadly this is one that didn't sit well with me at all!

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilyn and Me is the story of a woman traumatised by the Korean War who ends up as the translator for Marilyn Monroe during her visit to Korea performing for US soldiers. Alice works as a typist on an American military base in Korea, where she colours her hair with beer and is haunted by the horrors of the war. An unlikely chance to translate for Marilyn Monroe gives her a chance to compare her life to the star's, but it isn't long before men from her past are catching up with her and the truth of what happened to her during the war starts to unfold.

This is a powerful and gripping novel, that goes deep into Alice's emotions and into the situation in Korea during the war. It is short and fast paced, moving between the past (just before and during the Korean War) and the novel's present (1954) to unfold Alice's life and a web of survival and betrayal. It is both a book about war and trauma and a book about a lonely woman having a brief and unlikely friendship with a Hollywood star.

Complex and interesting, Marilyn and Me takes a real life moment from history and constructs a narrative around it that looks at the personal horrors of war and espionage and the difficulty of survival even once the war is over.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Goodreads/author for sending me this book for an honest review.
Overall the story is somewhat interesting. However, the story becomes uninteresting in many areas, especially in the beginning. It is a short read, under 200 pages.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This book is not what it seems like it's going to be about. The author was inspired by photos from the Korean war (one of a female translator and one of Marilyn Monroe, who visited to perform for soldiers) and wanted to bring the stories of these women to life.

The Starlet and the Spy is short but does pack a lot into it. For me, the plot felt disjointed. If you go in thinking this is a book about Marilyn Monroe (as her prominence on the cover suggests) you will be mistaken. It is also not about Monroe's relationship to her fictional translator Alice J. Kim. They barely interact and Monroe only appear a handful of times in the text in a rather insignificant way.

Instead, Lee's writing is full of tragedy. As in any book set during wartimes, the main character suffers immensely. Kim as a narrator is detached. The reader feels her anguish over her current life but her past is shrouded in mystery. What happens to her is never revealed in great detail and her reliability is questionable, so it's unclear what occurred. There were many thoughts about what war and violence do to people and those parts shone.

I was confused about the spy aspects, and overall just felt like there was too much going on for such a short page count. It seemed like the author was going back and forth between two different book ideas that never fully reached cohesion.

That said, I flew through this book. I didn't miss Monroe when she wasn't there because I was more invested in Kim as a character. I would have liked to see her experiences during the war in more depth, her jobs as propaganda artist and translator were interesting and could have used more page time. Lee of the romance and "love triangle" would have been good too, or more development of it to make readers more invested in the outcome.

[Eliza Rapsodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL

E-ARC cedido por la editorial a través de Edelweiss para una reseña honesta

Este titulo llamó mi atención por la portada que muestra a Marilyn Monroe frente a un micrófono. En ese momento no me fijé exactamente que ella estaba frente de una gran cantidad de soldados. Este libro lo pedí como copia anticipada y tardé bastante en leerlo. Y bueno, cuando decidí hacerlo, ha estado bastante bien.

Seúl, 1954. Alice es una artista coreana que trabaja para el gobierno estadounidense. Con un excelente manejo de inglés y japonés, ella trabaja en traducción.  Como muchos otros coreanos, ella carga un trágico pasado a sus espaldas, marcado por la cruel Guerra de Corea y todas las personas alrededor le recuerdan que está atorada en un pasado que le cuesta demasiado dejar atrás. Cuando le encargan ser la traductora de Marilyn Monroe en su breve visita a Corea, ella no está muy entusiasmada. Sin embargo, conocer a la rubia más famosa del mundo trae varias personas de vuelta a su vida.


Marilyn Monroe en Corea, 1954. Fuente: Rare Historical Photos

No sabía que esperar de esta historia y me alegra mucho decir que ha sido un libro que me ha tenido francamente entretenida. Esta es la primera obra de una autora surcoreana que he leído y me agrada mucho decir que pienso repetir con muchas más obras que ya tengo en la lista de deseos. Esta historia está contada desde el punto de vista de Alice y vamos yendo del pasado al presente para entender como ha sido su vida desde antes de la guerra, durante y mucho después. 

En el presente, conocemos a Alice días antes que la famosa Marilyn Monroe llegue a Corea. Asistimos a los detrás de escenas de los múltiples conciertos que la actriz y cantante dio para el ejército americano que seguía apostado en el país. Al mismo tiempo, vamos al pasado y conocemos a varios hombres que fueron cruciales en la vida de Alice y como fue su relación con ellos. Creo que Alice es un personaje bien trabajado, leer su historia desde su voz me ha mantenido muy enganchada y los personajes secundarios también están bien escritos, aunque no están supremamente presentes. La aparición de Marilyn en la historia es corta y anecdótica, y podría haber dado más juego del que realmente da.

Esta novela trae los recuerdos y experiencias de la Guerra de Corea y lo que Alice sufrió cuando el país empezó a ser atacado y miles de personas tuvieron que huir. La novela se tarda un poco en mostrarnos estos momentos y es muy lógico porque a medida que vamos avanzando, ella va mostrando esos momentos tan terribles que cuesta tanto dejar atrás. El tema me interesa ya que mi país envió soldados a Corea para esta guerra y hay testimonios en español de estos tres años de conflicto.

Inspirada por dos fotografías, una de una joven coreana con dos soldados americanos y las que hay de Marilyn cantando frente a los soldados americanos en Corea, The starlet and the spy me parecido una novela amena y entretenida. Destaco sobre todo el estilo de escritura (no puedo juzgar de la traducción del coreano) y lo ameno que ha sido conocer a Alice. Ji Min Lee, la autora, es una guionista sur coreana y escritora y espero leer muchas más historias de ella en el futuro.

**********************************

3.5

REVIEW IN ENGLISH

E-ARC provided by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review

This title caught my attention because Marilyn Monroe is standing in front of a microphone. At that time, I did not notice that she was in front of many soldiers. It took me a long time to read it (basically because of life). Well, after reading it, I can see it was pretty good.

Seoul, 1954. Alice is a Korean artist who works for the US government. With her excellent English and Japanese language skills, she works in translation. Like many other Koreans, she carries a tragic past behind her, marked by the cruel Korean War and all the people around her is a testimony that she is stuck in a past that is too hard to leave behind. When she is commissioned to be Marilyn Monroe's translator on her brief visit to Korea, she is not very enthusiastic about it. However, meeting the most famous blonde in the world brings along certain people back to her life.

I did not know what to expect from this story and I am very happy to say that it has been a book that had me frankly entertained. This is the first work of a South Korean author that I have ever read and I am very pleased to say that I plan to repeat with many other titles that I already have on my wishlist. The story is told from Alice's point of view, and we go from the past to the present to understand how her life has been before and after the war.

In the present, we meet Alice days before the famous Marilyn Monroe arrives to Korea. We see the behind the scenes of the multiple concerts that the actress and singer gave to the American army that was still stationed in the country. At the same time, we go back to the past and meet several men who were crucial in Alice's life and how was her relationship with them. I think Alice is a well-rounded character. Reading her story from own voice has kept me really hooked and the secondary characters are also well written, although they are not that present. Marilyn's appearance in the story is brief and not too transcendental, and could have given a better punch.

This novel brings to the table the memories and experiences of the Korean War when the country began to be attacked and thousands of people had to flee to save their lives. The novel takes a while to show us these moments and it is very logical because as we move forward, Alice remembers these terrible moments that it is so hard to leave behind. This really interests me since my country (Colombia) sent soldiers to Korea for the war and there are testimonies in Spanish of these three years of conflict.

Inspired by two photographs, one of a young Korean woman with two American soldiers and those of Marilyn singing in front of the American soldiers, The starlet and the spy is a well crafted and entertaining novel. I really liked the writing style (I can't tell how accurate it is, since it was translated from Korean) and how good it was to read Alice's story. Ji Min Lee, is a South Korean screenwriter as well and I really hope to read more stories from her in the future.

[Barry Welsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfRXI...

[Dawnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cover grabbed me. I love reading anything Marilyn Monroe. What I found reading this was so much more. A young Korean translator and the effects the war had on women and children. This book packs a big punch. The atmosphere of war through the eyes of a young Korean woman was emotional. This is a remarkable read. I highly reccomend it.

Dawnny-BookGypsy
Novels N Latte
Hudson Valley NY

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book set in Korea at the end of the Korean War. It’s nice to read something set in a totally different time and place than most things flooding the market! It was originally written in Korean and translated into English, so also something different and neat about it. But, don’t read it just for Marilyn, because her bits aren’t that prevalent…She makes brief appearances.

[Elina Mäkitalo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ei ollut ihan mun juttu tämä. Vähän sekava välillä. Välillä jouduin oikein pakottamaan ajatukset takaisin kirjaan, sen verran ajatukset lähtivät useaan otteeseen vaeltamaan.

Kuuntelin englanniksi ja lukija oli mielestäni todella huono ja välillä todella epäselvä sekä erittäin ärsyttävä.

[Andreea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nu mi-am dat seama până acum ce firesc e ca atenția în romanele despre război să fie îndreptată asupra femeilor. Bărbații sunt prea ocupați să (se) măcelărească. Femei care înnebunesc de durere, femei care fug cu copii în spate, femei care îngrijesc ciungi, femei care dau concerte absurde în fața a mii de nefericiți care nu știu cum să se mai consoleze că au transformat orașe întregi în ruine și cimitire.

[☕️Hélène⚜️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book and based on true events that happened just after the war. It's packed with some great stories about a woman trying to live in Korea after the war ended and meeting a star Marylin Monroe. Two different women from different backgrounds but somehow had a connection.

[Ella Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is something I never would normally read but I was intrigued. I loved the story of a young woman during the Korean war, her struggles and escapades and how she survived. However, I didn’t understand the necessity of bringing in Marilyn Monroe. I didn’t think it needed it.

[Charlotte Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


This book follows Alice, a survivor of the Korean War, as she tries to piece her life back together and deal with the aftermath of her wartime experiences. I knew nothing about the Korean War before reading this and it is definitely something I need to learn more about. Ji-Min Lee's writing style is readable and especially evocative when talking about locations and environments. I feel like the protagonist was flawed and definitely made mistakes but under the circumstances that she was in, I still sympathised with her throughout.

There are so many positive things I could say but unfortunately what brought this book down for me were the portion about Marilyn Monroe's visit. The emphasis on physical beauty against the backdrop of such harrowing larger issues seemed completely out of place and didn't seem to add anything to the story for me. I think the timeline was also very confusing as the chapters moved around in time but there were also flashbacks throughout so I often got confused about where we were.

Overall, I am glad I read this book and would like to read more about this place and time. There are aspects of the plot that I found too convenient but on the whole, I would recommend this book.

3 out of 5 stars!

[Loredana (Bookinista08) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vă spun sincer, faptul că-i dau 3 stele acestei cărți e înșelător, și asta fiindcă mi-a plăcut destul de mult și a fost o lectură plăcută, în ciuda scenelor dure și uneori șocante din timpul războiului, aruncate parcă din senin în text. Dar și-au îndeplinit scopul, fiindcă asta m-a păstrat interesată de poveste până la capăt, și adevărul e că războiul nu e ceva estetic, cele mai teribile lucruri s-au întâmplat în momente complet neașteptate și la nimereală. Autoarea nu a vrut să șocheze, zic eu, ci pur și simplu să transmită atmosfera acelor vremuri, și i-a reușit de minune, în opinia mea.
Însă ce m-a nedumerit și, hai să zicem, nemulțumit a fost faptul că autoarea o folosește pe Marilyn ca personaj de umplutură, mie așa mi s-a părut, și nu am văzut rostul prezenței ei în carte. Oricum eram deja interesată 100% de personajul principal Alice J. Kim, nu aveam nevoie și de altă prezență feminină depresivă ca să ce? Nu știu, pur și simplu n-am înțeles de ce Lee a folosit-o.
O altă treabă care m-a deranjat a fost, și nu-mi vine să cred că zic asta, subțirimea cărții. Pentru mine personal ar fi fost o carte de 5 stele dacă Marilyn ar fi dispărut și în schimb ar fi apărut povestea mai detaliată a trecutului lui Alice, fiindcă aș fi fost interesată de backgroundul ei familial, educațional, etc. Mi s-a părut un personaj extrem de interesant și aș fi vrut să aflu mai multe despre ea. În fine.
Ca să conclud, deși îi acord 3 stele aici, mie mi-a plăcut chiar mult și da, o recomand mai departe! Ah, și cu ocazia asta am aflat și de „scheletul” conflictului politic din peninsula coreeană din anii 40-50, fiindcă până acum nu avusesem habar ce și cum. Deci poate fi și o scurtă și binevenită lecție de istorie. ;)

[Tiah]

Book Bite on behalf of the Sunday Times: https://bit.ly/2VFkmRD

~I go to work thinking of death.~

~My work basically consists of compiling useless information for the sake of binational amity.~

~Once, an American officer took out his wallet, saying, "I'd like to see for myself. Do Oriental girl's privates go horizontal or vertical?" I told him, "Every woman's privates look the same as your mother's."~

~The man who ruins a young lady's reputation is often a gentleman who walks her home at night.~

~The collapse of a relationship doesn't begin on the the day you part ways; it builds gradually, starting on the day you witness each other's truths.~

~It's easier to be attracted to one man's despair than it is to desire the love of two men. Ending up with my own loneliness is the easiest and quickest of all. In our triangle, each of us separately felt love and despair and loneliness.~

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many other reviewers have pointed out, the English titles for this book (both 'Marilyn and Me' and 'the Starlet and the Spy') are a little misleading. This book is about one woman's trauma, flashing between Alice's present, acting as an interpreter for Marilyn Monroe and becoming tangentially involved in a spy plot, and her past, who she was before the war and the horrors she witnessed during it. Despite the very short length of the book, Alice felt very believable as a character and I was surprised by how much I felt for her in such a short length of time.

It is set in a period of history I do not know a lot about, so I'd like to read more about it to be able to understand the context more fully, but I'm very glad I picked this book up.

[Millie Yeoman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It takes a while to get into this one with a lot of references to a time and place I know little about.

The story of the main character is very interesting and is woven into a visit from Marilyn Monroe.

The woman's story on its own I feel would of been pivotle and powerful, I missed the relevance of Marilyn being so present in this story. More could of been made of interactions from character and feel the letters at the end acted a bit of a cop out.

Its not my favourite but it opened my eyes so it's worth a read.

[Nicola Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit I knew little about the Korean war except it was fought from1950 and a ceasefire was enforced in 1953. The story of Marilyn and me was an idea set in place by photos of Marilyn performing for American servicemen stationed in Korea in 1954. Although Marilyn is not the main protagonist she does appear briefly.

The main protagonist is a translater who has given herself a new name after the tragic events she has been through during the war. Its a high emotional and haunting story which everyone should read as Korea is the forgotten war. But this story is a beautifully woven tale and powerful and shows how the human spirit can with time heal to a certain extent.