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Skinship: Stories
A PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE NOMINEE - The breathtaking debut of an important new voice--centered on a constellation of Korean American families
"To encounter these achingly truthful, beautiful stories of newcomer Americans is like gazing up at the starry vault of a perfect night sky; it's immediately dazzling and impressive, and yet the closer and deeper you look, the more you appreciate the sheer countless brilliance." --Chang-rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad
A long-married couple is forced to confront their friend's painful past when a church revival comes to a nearby town ... A woman in an arranged marriage struggles to connect with the son she hid from her husband for years ... A well-meaning sister unwittingly reunites an abuser with his victims.
Through an indelible array of lives, Yoon Choi explores where first and second generations either clash or find common ground, where meaning falls in the cracks between languages, where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment, where displacement turns to heartbreak.
Skinship is suffused with a profound understanding of humanity and offers a searing look at who the people we love truly are.
"To encounter these achingly truthful, beautiful stories of newcomer Americans is like gazing up at the starry vault of a perfect night sky; it's immediately dazzling and impressive, and yet the closer and deeper you look, the more you appreciate the sheer countless brilliance." --Chang-rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad
A long-married couple is forced to confront their friend's painful past when a church revival comes to a nearby town ... A woman in an arranged marriage struggles to connect with the son she hid from her husband for years ... A well-meaning sister unwittingly reunites an abuser with his victims.
Through an indelible array of lives, Yoon Choi explores where first and second generations either clash or find common ground, where meaning falls in the cracks between languages, where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment, where displacement turns to heartbreak.
Skinship is suffused with a profound understanding of humanity and offers a searing look at who the people we love truly are.
304 pages, Paperback
First published August 17, 2021
263 people are currently reading
15589 people want to read
About the author
Yoon Choi
2 books92 followersYoon Choi was born in Korea and moved to the U.S. at the age of three. She has an MA from Johns Hopkins and is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Her stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Narrative Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories 2018. She lives with her husband and four children in Anaheim, California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 378 reviews
May 30, 2021
I first encountered Yoon Choi’s fiction when I selected her story, The Art of Losing, for Best American Short Stories 2018. It was wonderful to experience more of her exquisite writing in this collection. These stories of Korean American families are delicately plotted, subtle and immensely pleasurable to read. I loved the range of characters and circumstances in which they found themselves. I loved the unexpected turns in each of the stories that were always well-earned. This is a must read.
January 12, 2022
This was the most Korean-American book I've ever read and an absolute stunning debut short story collection. Easily my favourite read of 2021. All killer, no filler — I can't recommend this book enough.
The entire collection is perfectly balanced. Naturally there is the singular thread focusing on Korean immigrant stories, but from a wide spectrum of voices. We have the girl heading into third grade following the aging couple working at a convenience store. The middle-aged autistic piano prodigy tells one story while a sullen teenaged Korean adoptee tells another. And while there isn't a single personal counterpart for me here on the page, they all struck an immediate and visceral chord within me. Every story feels deeply connected to my own experience.
Even more stunning is that these stories don't centre whiteness the way traditional immigrant narratives tend to. The Koreans here aren't outsiders looking in, there's no smelly lunchbox story. The collection doesn't set out to highlight tensions these characters might feel in their newly adopted land when thrown against a predominantly black and white backdrop. It's Koreans talking about Koreans and centering their own deeply personal experiences. I am screaming.
You don't have to be a second generation Korean to enjoy this book (though it doesn't hurt). The writing is just stellar and this is a jaw-dropping debut from an author I can't wait to see more from.
The entire collection is perfectly balanced. Naturally there is the singular thread focusing on Korean immigrant stories, but from a wide spectrum of voices. We have the girl heading into third grade following the aging couple working at a convenience store. The middle-aged autistic piano prodigy tells one story while a sullen teenaged Korean adoptee tells another. And while there isn't a single personal counterpart for me here on the page, they all struck an immediate and visceral chord within me. Every story feels deeply connected to my own experience.
Even more stunning is that these stories don't centre whiteness the way traditional immigrant narratives tend to. The Koreans here aren't outsiders looking in, there's no smelly lunchbox story. The collection doesn't set out to highlight tensions these characters might feel in their newly adopted land when thrown against a predominantly black and white backdrop. It's Koreans talking about Koreans and centering their own deeply personal experiences. I am screaming.
You don't have to be a second generation Korean to enjoy this book (though it doesn't hurt). The writing is just stellar and this is a jaw-dropping debut from an author I can't wait to see more from.
October 26, 2024
First short story book that really kept my attention and felt invested in, though it was probably because I am a Korean immigrant in the US and they were about being Korean immigrant in the US.
January 17, 2025
3.5 stars
What I loved most about this collection was its nuanced, emotionally raw portrayal of first generation Korean immigrant families in the United States. Yoon Choi did such a great job of completely eschewing the model minority stereotype and showing these families’ struggles with money and finances, losing and loving one another, and making a home for themselves in a foreign country. There were moving themes of assimilation that maintained a level of pride in Korean culture and weren’t tied to whiteness. I also found Choi’s (intentional or not) focus on disability interesting; there was a couple of representations that struck me as a bit odd (“First Language,” “Solo Works the Piano”), though for the most part I felt she was effective and caring in her portrayals.
What pulled me back from giving this collection a higher rating was that they all seemed a bit too similar for me tonally by the time I got to the end. For some reason the emotional range of the collection wasn’t as magnificent – even in a quiet way – as I wanted it to be, though I was overall interested in the characters and their lives, which doesn’t happen too frequently with me and short stories. If the synopsis of the book interests you I’d perhaps give it a try. My favorites were “Church of Abundant Life,” “A Map of the Simplified World” (amazing themes of the costs of upward mobility and striving), and “Song and Song” (great ideas related to what it means to live a “successful” life).
What I loved most about this collection was its nuanced, emotionally raw portrayal of first generation Korean immigrant families in the United States. Yoon Choi did such a great job of completely eschewing the model minority stereotype and showing these families’ struggles with money and finances, losing and loving one another, and making a home for themselves in a foreign country. There were moving themes of assimilation that maintained a level of pride in Korean culture and weren’t tied to whiteness. I also found Choi’s (intentional or not) focus on disability interesting; there was a couple of representations that struck me as a bit odd (“First Language,” “Solo Works the Piano”), though for the most part I felt she was effective and caring in her portrayals.
What pulled me back from giving this collection a higher rating was that they all seemed a bit too similar for me tonally by the time I got to the end. For some reason the emotional range of the collection wasn’t as magnificent – even in a quiet way – as I wanted it to be, though I was overall interested in the characters and their lives, which doesn’t happen too frequently with me and short stories. If the synopsis of the book interests you I’d perhaps give it a try. My favorites were “Church of Abundant Life,” “A Map of the Simplified World” (amazing themes of the costs of upward mobility and striving), and “Song and Song” (great ideas related to what it means to live a “successful” life).
Want to read
August 2, 2024“To encounter these achingly truthful, beautiful stories of newcomer Americans is like gazing up at the starry vault of a perfect night sky; it’s immediately dazzling and impressive, and yet the closer and deeper you look, the more you appreciate the sheer countless brilliance.” — Chang-rae Lee
the way i just smashed that want to read button.
the way i just smashed that want to read button.
September 1, 2021
Wow - to me this is possibly the most "Korean American" book I've read, in that the author's perception/awareness of Korean people in Korea seems deeply lived-in and granular—the sense of lost homeland doesn't feel mythologized or romanticized or caricatured in any way, as I feel like a lot of books are prone to do.
The cast of Korean American characters, especially ones stuck in their insular, melancholic, and pious communities, made me think tonally of the stories of Alice Munro, and how people must so often live out lives that are filled with longing and dissatisfaction. As in Munro's stories, the church is a behemoth stand-in for community, but does little to assuage the characters' lives.
In terms of the language, I was also struck by how literal some of the translations are—the author seemed to prefer literal translations of Korean phrases into English, which I think defamiliarizes the text, makes me see the English anew. A few phrases that have lingered: characters addressing each other as "husband" or "wife," greeting each other by saying "you've come?" "hi you". In one story, "First Language," I think the author tries to write in the interior monologue of someone who has learned English as a second language, as an adult, hence the deliberately awkward articles/conjunctions. Here's just one paragraph as an example: “Before we got married thirteen years ago, my husband didn’t care what to wear or how to look or even about having the family. You know what he was? The nerd. He liked to read books. Not newspapers but books that are fiction. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe that’s why he wanted to be the cop. To understand the humanity.”
Another thing I found really rewarding was how the author was willing to inhabit and deeply consider the minds and psychologies of a wide cast of characters: an old man with Alzheimer's, a piano prodigy perhaps on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum, a young schoolgirl, a Korean adoptee, a wife brought to America unwillingly. At times I felt like some of these characters felt a bit too symbolic/representative/didactic, but most of the time they felt rich and human. The stories weren't flashy or sexy in their plots, but seemed to move along at the pace of each character, letting them live out their slice of life in a way that felt empathetic and real.
The cast of Korean American characters, especially ones stuck in their insular, melancholic, and pious communities, made me think tonally of the stories of Alice Munro, and how people must so often live out lives that are filled with longing and dissatisfaction. As in Munro's stories, the church is a behemoth stand-in for community, but does little to assuage the characters' lives.
In terms of the language, I was also struck by how literal some of the translations are—the author seemed to prefer literal translations of Korean phrases into English, which I think defamiliarizes the text, makes me see the English anew. A few phrases that have lingered: characters addressing each other as "husband" or "wife," greeting each other by saying "you've come?" "hi you". In one story, "First Language," I think the author tries to write in the interior monologue of someone who has learned English as a second language, as an adult, hence the deliberately awkward articles/conjunctions. Here's just one paragraph as an example: “Before we got married thirteen years ago, my husband didn’t care what to wear or how to look or even about having the family. You know what he was? The nerd. He liked to read books. Not newspapers but books that are fiction. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe that’s why he wanted to be the cop. To understand the humanity.”
Another thing I found really rewarding was how the author was willing to inhabit and deeply consider the minds and psychologies of a wide cast of characters: an old man with Alzheimer's, a piano prodigy perhaps on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum, a young schoolgirl, a Korean adoptee, a wife brought to America unwillingly. At times I felt like some of these characters felt a bit too symbolic/representative/didactic, but most of the time they felt rich and human. The stories weren't flashy or sexy in their plots, but seemed to move along at the pace of each character, letting them live out their slice of life in a way that felt empathetic and real.
August 7, 2021
SKINSHIP by Yoon Choi is a remarkable short story collection! I loved it! All of the stories revolved around the Korean American experience and I felt such a connection to these stories and characters as written by a female Asian author. Choi especially writes poignantly about the relationship between mother and daughter which is featured in my fave story in the collection “Song and Song”. I really enjoyed all of the stories and loved the themes that included being an immigrant, language barriers, elderly care, and family bonds. I’ve been loving short stories and now this one is a new fave! Highly recommend!!
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Thank you to AA Knopf for my uncorrected proof!
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Thank you to AA Knopf for my uncorrected proof!
February 8, 2022
Eight stories. Eight Korean-American experiences. Eight intricate tales that navigate family, grief, immigration, social hierarchies, displacement, trauma, and separation. Drenched in emotions and dipped in genuinity, this debut collection easily paints a grey area of realism to unravel the heart of a diaspora that bears the weight of sacrifices, the torch of culture, and an awkward longing for something more—something closer to home, here or there.
What already impressed me in Choi’s short story that was selected by Roxanne Gay for Best American Short Stories 2018, The Art of Losing—a grief-filled, subtly wrenching, and outright emotional tale of an ageing couple treading the present and the past; memories that are clear and remembrances that are hazy due to Alzheimer’s—continued to stir me in this collection. From a Korean mother leaving behind her child to enter an arranged marriage with an American, to an adoptee who observes the artefacts in the home of an old, dying, veteran of the Korean war with detachment while his mind is focused on his own aspirations, the stories might be simple but are not effortless.
I’m not Korean, I’m not American, but this collection touched me through its wide spectrum of voices from a singular culture encompassing various identities: not by demanding sympathy, not by opening a window for you to look in, not by playing the game of morality—but by letting the tales unfurl on its own through a language and a storytelling method that gives them all the space and time they deserve.
What already impressed me in Choi’s short story that was selected by Roxanne Gay for Best American Short Stories 2018, The Art of Losing—a grief-filled, subtly wrenching, and outright emotional tale of an ageing couple treading the present and the past; memories that are clear and remembrances that are hazy due to Alzheimer’s—continued to stir me in this collection. From a Korean mother leaving behind her child to enter an arranged marriage with an American, to an adoptee who observes the artefacts in the home of an old, dying, veteran of the Korean war with detachment while his mind is focused on his own aspirations, the stories might be simple but are not effortless.
I’m not Korean, I’m not American, but this collection touched me through its wide spectrum of voices from a singular culture encompassing various identities: not by demanding sympathy, not by opening a window for you to look in, not by playing the game of morality—but by letting the tales unfurl on its own through a language and a storytelling method that gives them all the space and time they deserve.
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April 7, 2022
Well written but none of the stories rocked my world nor lingered in my memory. It may be that I’m in the middle of a reading slump or it may be that I actually don’t care for it, but oh well.
June 17, 2022
This collection of short stories about Korean immigrants is quite moving and provides real insight into their particular culture and challenges. I think I preferred the eponymous story the best, but all of them had a special ambiance and were page turners.
This is the list of stories:
The Church of Abundant Life
First Language
A Map of the Simplified World
Solo Works for Piano
Skinship
The Art of Losing
The Loved Ones
Song and Song
One quote I liked: "foods that were overly sweetened tasted of deceit."
My list of Pulitzer hopefuls here! Come today and vote on your favorite!
This is the list of stories:
The Church of Abundant Life
First Language
A Map of the Simplified World
Solo Works for Piano
Skinship
The Art of Losing
The Loved Ones
Song and Song
One quote I liked: "foods that were overly sweetened tasted of deceit."
My list of Pulitzer hopefuls here! Come today and vote on your favorite!
January 2, 2022
A worthy debut, indeed. What I appreciated most was author hitting upon all of the seminal subjects that envelope Korean culture— nailing even the subtler, “hidden” elements of the culture that are difficult to illustrate in story…. I get why “Han” exists for the arbitrarily drawn 38th parallel country that has ripped its people apart.
May 24, 2021
I am reminded of the song "Is that all there is?". You marry, not necessarily for love, maybe give birth and raise children, maybe you have a job as well. Each day is another foot in front of the other until you die. I can grasp that there is some beauty to the writing but I was left with a feeling of great emptiness in these lives.
Thank you to Goodreads for a copy for my review.
Thank you to Goodreads for a copy for my review.
August 31, 2021
Don't judge a cover by its book.
The cover is better.
The cover is better.
March 16, 2022
A fantastic set of short stories with not a single dud among them.
September 6, 2021
4.5 Stars
This is without a doubt one of the strongest collections of short stories I've ever read. The stories are all on the longer side (the shortest is over 20 pages), which is exactly the kind of length I prefer. The author is incredibly skilled in describing emotion and the intricate nuances of the ways in which people interact with each other. Each of the stories immersed me and had a strong emotional impact on me. It is rare for me to find a story collection where I like every single story, so that in itself is noteworthy. I found that this collection often subverted cliches of immigrant fiction, which was refreshing to me. I feel like immigrant fiction makes up a significant portion of what I read, so it's always nice to find books that add something new to the genre.
I can't give this a full five stars because I felt that the last story petered out a bit, and it kind of made for a comparatively weaker ending to the collection as a whole. The author is incredibly skilled at writing about how old age and illness affect familial relationships, but since three of the later stories in the collection all focus on this theme, the stories felt a bit too similar together, even though each was excellent on its own.
Despite these few criticisms, I would highly recommend this collection if you're looking for more substantive stories rather than concise ones.
This is without a doubt one of the strongest collections of short stories I've ever read. The stories are all on the longer side (the shortest is over 20 pages), which is exactly the kind of length I prefer. The author is incredibly skilled in describing emotion and the intricate nuances of the ways in which people interact with each other. Each of the stories immersed me and had a strong emotional impact on me. It is rare for me to find a story collection where I like every single story, so that in itself is noteworthy. I found that this collection often subverted cliches of immigrant fiction, which was refreshing to me. I feel like immigrant fiction makes up a significant portion of what I read, so it's always nice to find books that add something new to the genre.
I can't give this a full five stars because I felt that the last story petered out a bit, and it kind of made for a comparatively weaker ending to the collection as a whole. The author is incredibly skilled at writing about how old age and illness affect familial relationships, but since three of the later stories in the collection all focus on this theme, the stories felt a bit too similar together, even though each was excellent on its own.
Despite these few criticisms, I would highly recommend this collection if you're looking for more substantive stories rather than concise ones.
September 29, 2021
Impressive debut collection of short stories and novellas. The stories are not exactly interconnected, but each reflects upon universal themes which bind the stories together and build a larger whole from the constituent parts.The author unravels examples of what is the same, and what is completely different, about the beginning, middle and the end of the lives of communities, families, and individuals.
Most importantly, this is a firsthand perspective on the Korean immigrant experience. The juxtaposition between common life experiences and unique cultual details creates a tension which gives the narratives the sharper edges they need. To be honest, I was surprised that there wasn't more conflict, as certainly each story had the foundational structure to support it.
Overall, I'm left feeling more sympathetic to all generations of immigrants, due to the revelatory storytelling style of the author.
Most importantly, this is a firsthand perspective on the Korean immigrant experience. The juxtaposition between common life experiences and unique cultual details creates a tension which gives the narratives the sharper edges they need. To be honest, I was surprised that there wasn't more conflict, as certainly each story had the foundational structure to support it.
Overall, I'm left feeling more sympathetic to all generations of immigrants, due to the revelatory storytelling style of the author.
Read
July 30, 2024I am soooooo incredibly excited to dive into this book!
I'm still on the first short story, visually seeing the characters in my head and hearing their voices and intonation, feeling like I'm seeing my parents in them. This hits you deeply as a Korean immigrant but I imagine non-Korean immigrants and anyone else for that matter being sucked into its empathy trip as well.
Audiobook version is best one!
If you want to start listen now you can find here: Skinship (Audiobook)
As someone who's been exposed to a shit ton of literature as a struggling student and now as a life-loving literature enthusiast, this is the MOST powerful medium to universally foster empathy. Yoon Choi, you're something else. I hope others read and follow in your brave and loving footsteps. Get this book. It may help you understand others a little bit more. Or just try the experiment and see if it helps you grow as a human being. Pick it up!
I'm still on the first short story, visually seeing the characters in my head and hearing their voices and intonation, feeling like I'm seeing my parents in them. This hits you deeply as a Korean immigrant but I imagine non-Korean immigrants and anyone else for that matter being sucked into its empathy trip as well.
Audiobook version is best one!
If you want to start listen now you can find here: Skinship (Audiobook)
As someone who's been exposed to a shit ton of literature as a struggling student and now as a life-loving literature enthusiast, this is the MOST powerful medium to universally foster empathy. Yoon Choi, you're something else. I hope others read and follow in your brave and loving footsteps. Get this book. It may help you understand others a little bit more. Or just try the experiment and see if it helps you grow as a human being. Pick it up!
December 20, 2023
This isn’t just your average boo-hoo I’m Asian in America lit. There’s no smelly lunchbox at the table story, nothing about this is cliche. It’s so richly written, every story is just as haunting as the last. The characters, chef’s kiss! Every story is its own world which is what the best short stories make me feel.
February 19, 2022
Thoughtful and powerfully relatable short stories that delve into the big things in life. Things like love, loss, motherhood, marriage and happiness. The characters felt like people I know, people I want to know and their world has parallels in my world.
January 20, 2024
Choi has immense flexibility in her writing muscles. Each story embodies its narrator in vividly different colors and emotions, I could hardly believe all of those were written by a single person.
September 29, 2021
There wasn't one person in these stories who was enjoying a happy life. I gave up reading this depressing book about ⅔ of the way through.
September 25, 2021
4.5
I love short story fiction pieces, and as soon as I began reading Skinship, it felt as if this is a book I've been waiting for my entire life. It was so beautifully written, evoking so many familiar and complicated emotions in me that I had to sit and consider far longer than I expected. In the end, it felt like this book wraps you up and pulls you in all directions. The trajectory of the stories, the way they all fall into place, the diasporic variation, the intensely familiar challenges of multi-generational households, aging parents, growing kids, and so many different coming-of-age stories at so many ages... it's hard to find the words for how I felt page after page.
The only reason I gave this 4.5 instead of 5 stars is that I found a few of the middle stories mundane, or less driven than the others. Maybe it's just where I am in life right now, or the experience I've had and my expectations. They're not bad, they're just not my favorites. That being said, aside from 2 stories, I loved all the others front to back. Paired alongside East to America by Elaine Kim, I think this is a book I will come back to again and again because it reminds of me of home and family.
I love short story fiction pieces, and as soon as I began reading Skinship, it felt as if this is a book I've been waiting for my entire life. It was so beautifully written, evoking so many familiar and complicated emotions in me that I had to sit and consider far longer than I expected. In the end, it felt like this book wraps you up and pulls you in all directions. The trajectory of the stories, the way they all fall into place, the diasporic variation, the intensely familiar challenges of multi-generational households, aging parents, growing kids, and so many different coming-of-age stories at so many ages... it's hard to find the words for how I felt page after page.
The only reason I gave this 4.5 instead of 5 stars is that I found a few of the middle stories mundane, or less driven than the others. Maybe it's just where I am in life right now, or the experience I've had and my expectations. They're not bad, they're just not my favorites. That being said, aside from 2 stories, I loved all the others front to back. Paired alongside East to America by Elaine Kim, I think this is a book I will come back to again and again because it reminds of me of home and family.
Read
August 4, 2025pretty amazing collection!! took me a bit to really get into this, but then absolutely hooked! “Solo Works for Piano” of course became a very quick favorite!! but lots of gems & will keep an eye on this author.
*
In Korean, that word is jeong. It is one of the most meaningful word in my language. It is even more meaningful than sarang, which is the "love," because jeong is not a duty. It is that feeling of the glad heart when you see someone. The way how he looks, how he talks, how he smells. Every little thing what he likes and doesn't like. Even the bad habit. That feeling is jeong.
—59
I will tell you something. It is very easy to lie in the language that is not your first language.
—78
*
In Korean, that word is jeong. It is one of the most meaningful word in my language. It is even more meaningful than sarang, which is the "love," because jeong is not a duty. It is that feeling of the glad heart when you see someone. The way how he looks, how he talks, how he smells. Every little thing what he likes and doesn't like. Even the bad habit. That feeling is jeong.
—59
I will tell you something. It is very easy to lie in the language that is not your first language.
—78
December 13, 2022
Choi has a finely tuned understanding of human interaction; the details she captures in each short story here—some unique to Korean culture, some recognizable to anyone—are like an anthropological study. She definitely has important things to say and I found each story well worth the read.
That being said, I felt the whole collection took a sort of melancholy, almost downtrodden tone that I didn’t find representative of Korean culture today, though it did grasp a certain element of “Han”, or Korean cultural mourning, quite effectively.
That being said, I felt the whole collection took a sort of melancholy, almost downtrodden tone that I didn’t find representative of Korean culture today, though it did grasp a certain element of “Han”, or Korean cultural mourning, quite effectively.
February 28, 2024
This book is a lesson on empathy. The way Choi writes about people is so beautifully honest; they are authentically human in the best and worst ways. Choi manages to capture that essence into each story, breaking my heart a little each time.
July 7, 2021
June 27, 2021
I’m torn between rating it a 3 and 4. But maybe after reflection my thoughts may change
I’m torn between rating it a 3 and 4. But maybe after reflection my thoughts may change
July 27, 2025
as with the other short story collections i’ve read, i’m going to give each story in this collection a separate star rating:
THE CHURCH OF ABUNDANT LIFE - 3 Stars
On one hand, I really like how the characters in this story (and the collection in general) are really nuanced rather than black-and-white good or bad; however, i feel like the “life goes on” message didn’t land when the obvious answer in my opinion was that the main characters should just get divorced.
FIRST LANGUAGE - 3 Stars
This story was similar to The Magic Fish, but its portrayal of the only gay(?) person in this whole collection was Weird so i guess it is the Evil Magic Fish.
A MAP OF THE SIMPLIFIED WORLD - 3 Stars
This story is (i think) communicating ambition and what we leave behind, but also the character’s decision to become ambitious comes out of no where, as in the books literally says “Then something happened. One morning…[she] woke up with an uneasy feeling of aspiration.” This sudden shift felt really jarring in a book that tries hard (and mostly succeeds) to capture the nuances of life.
SOLO WORKS FOR PIANO - 2 Stars
This story about an autistic man who loves the piano asks the Bold question of whether autistic people can feel human emotions and live human lives. also, the author managed to sneak an interest in trains in there somehow.
SKINSHIP - 4 Stars
I liked how this story contrasted keeping up a front of love for family to preserve a good look vs genuinely hating a member of your family for how they behave in your relationship with them.
THE ART OF LOSING - 3 Stars
I think a big problem for me with this collection is the lack of joy in it. While the small moments of sadness and resentment we all experience are captured, the completely pure moments of joy and happiness are too absent for my liking. In this story we see the main male character who is losing his memory experience some happy remembrance, but his wife who takes care of him does nothing but suffer.
THE LOVED ONES - 2.5 Stars
So many things we could’ve explored in this one, but not a second paragraph was given to any of them.
SONG AND SONG - 4.25 Stars
I do love reading romance books but what Really hits is a literary fiction sister relationship.
Overall, i felt a little let down by this book since i (allegedly!) love a short story collection. In terms of capturing nuanced relationships, i would recommend the secret lives of church ladies.
THE CHURCH OF ABUNDANT LIFE - 3 Stars
On one hand, I really like how the characters in this story (and the collection in general) are really nuanced rather than black-and-white good or bad; however, i feel like the “life goes on” message didn’t land when the obvious answer in my opinion was that the main characters should just get divorced.
FIRST LANGUAGE - 3 Stars
This story was similar to The Magic Fish, but its portrayal of the only gay(?) person in this whole collection was Weird so i guess it is the Evil Magic Fish.
A MAP OF THE SIMPLIFIED WORLD - 3 Stars
This story is (i think) communicating ambition and what we leave behind, but also the character’s decision to become ambitious comes out of no where, as in the books literally says “Then something happened. One morning…[she] woke up with an uneasy feeling of aspiration.” This sudden shift felt really jarring in a book that tries hard (and mostly succeeds) to capture the nuances of life.
SOLO WORKS FOR PIANO - 2 Stars
This story about an autistic man who loves the piano asks the Bold question of whether autistic people can feel human emotions and live human lives. also, the author managed to sneak an interest in trains in there somehow.
SKINSHIP - 4 Stars
I liked how this story contrasted keeping up a front of love for family to preserve a good look vs genuinely hating a member of your family for how they behave in your relationship with them.
THE ART OF LOSING - 3 Stars
I think a big problem for me with this collection is the lack of joy in it. While the small moments of sadness and resentment we all experience are captured, the completely pure moments of joy and happiness are too absent for my liking. In this story we see the main male character who is losing his memory experience some happy remembrance, but his wife who takes care of him does nothing but suffer.
THE LOVED ONES - 2.5 Stars
So many things we could’ve explored in this one, but not a second paragraph was given to any of them.
SONG AND SONG - 4.25 Stars
I do love reading romance books but what Really hits is a literary fiction sister relationship.
Overall, i felt a little let down by this book since i (allegedly!) love a short story collection. In terms of capturing nuanced relationships, i would recommend the secret lives of church ladies.
September 1, 2021
A kind of book I want to revisit over & over again, “Skinship” by Yoon Choi. This book is so beautiful and I love it so much, I’ll definitely be gifting it to some of my favorite people in my life. One of my most anticipated books of summer 2021, this is an absolute stunning debut short story collection, collection of short stories of the Korean-American experience as first- & second-generation immigrants. A rare collection in which each & every story is GOOD — elegantly captured, exquisitely detailed, and intimately attentive and all characters & stories are well-crafted & stand out. Ultimately, these are stories about human and human experiences with resonant, universal appeal & themes. No doubt this will be one of top favorites of the year. 🤓✌️📖
August 17, 2021
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. Here is that review:
5 stars
This is an outstanding collection that centers on deep connections, personal growth (and lack thereof), public versus private lives, and countless aspects of identity. Every story presents intimate revelations, and Yoon's talent is not only in creating beauty through this genre but in excavating what feel like individual and collective truths through each character's experience.
Readers interested in this collection may have come across "The Art of Losing" in a number of other places (another very famous collection, online) and be concerned that nothing can top or come close to matching that piece. Set those fears aside. While that's the story of Yoon's I'll be teaching this semester, any one of the works in here is not only syllabus worthy (for me, one of the highest points of praise available) but is also easy to recommend to any reader. These characters - even those who harbor secrets that make them less sympathetic - are wildly relatable. The style and development will appeal not only to lovers of the genre but also to those who prefer the kind of in-depth revelations that novels and novellas (ideally) provide.
I often tear through books in a single sitting or in a couple of days, but I forced myself to take this one at a slower pace so that I could fully immerse myself in the themes and characters here. This was the right approach. Savor these stories. Sit with these characters and their choices. Know more about yourself and the people around you as a result.
Highly recommended. I can't wait to teach this in a few weeks!
5 stars
This is an outstanding collection that centers on deep connections, personal growth (and lack thereof), public versus private lives, and countless aspects of identity. Every story presents intimate revelations, and Yoon's talent is not only in creating beauty through this genre but in excavating what feel like individual and collective truths through each character's experience.
Readers interested in this collection may have come across "The Art of Losing" in a number of other places (another very famous collection, online) and be concerned that nothing can top or come close to matching that piece. Set those fears aside. While that's the story of Yoon's I'll be teaching this semester, any one of the works in here is not only syllabus worthy (for me, one of the highest points of praise available) but is also easy to recommend to any reader. These characters - even those who harbor secrets that make them less sympathetic - are wildly relatable. The style and development will appeal not only to lovers of the genre but also to those who prefer the kind of in-depth revelations that novels and novellas (ideally) provide.
I often tear through books in a single sitting or in a couple of days, but I forced myself to take this one at a slower pace so that I could fully immerse myself in the themes and characters here. This was the right approach. Savor these stories. Sit with these characters and their choices. Know more about yourself and the people around you as a result.
Highly recommended. I can't wait to teach this in a few weeks!
September 21, 2021
3.5
I really liked some of the short stories in this book and a couple of them just so-so.
I think The Art of Losing was my favorite. It's in Best American Short Stories 2018. It's told from the perspective of a husband with Alzheimer's.
“First Language,” about driving to pick up the son, was pretty devastating.
In the title story, a woman comes to the U.S. with her children (to get away from her abusive husband) and stays with her sister and brother-in-law and niece. It is a difficult situation for the new arrivals, who are not fully welcomed.
From Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air: "Once in a while, in the torpid weeks of late summer, a new writer appears whose voice has so much zest and authority, they pre-emptively steal some of the spotlight from the big Fall books. Skinship, a just-published short story collection by Yoon Choi, is in that magical category of debuts. Reading Choi's stories reminds me of how I felt when I first read the works of other singular sensations like Kevin Wilson or Karen Russell, writers who do things with language and storytelling that no one else has quite done before.
Skinship consists of eight pretty long short stories, most of them exploring the Korean immigrant experience in America. I know: immigration is hardly a fresh subject and it's especially popular in memoirs and fiction these days. But, it's Choi's approach, the way her stories unexpectedly splinter out from a single life to touch upon decades of family history shaped by immigration that make them something special.
Take the story, "First Language," whose mild title doesn't prepare you for the slew of disturbing details to come. The story opens with a husband and wife driving through the Lincoln Tunnel, from New York to New Jersey. Our narrator, the wife, is named Sae-ri and she opens by telling us: "I cannot guess what my husband is thinking as we drive back to Second Chance Ranch one Friday in October."
As we learn, there's an entire life's worth of backstory vacuum-packed into that sentence: a semi-secret out-of-wedlock birth, emigration from Korea for an arranged marriage in America, and the perceived need for the kind of "second chances" offered at that ranch. If Sae-ri can't "guess what [her] husband is thinking," he'd surely slam his foot on the brake if he knew what was going on in her mind.
That condition of opacity marks most of Choi's marriages, as well as other relationships here. Despite the affection many of her characters share, most are unable or unwilling to fully translate their private lives to each other. In the poignant story, "The Art of Losing," that condition of opacity is literal: An elderly man struggles with early Alzheimer's. Here he is, trying to process his blithely oblivious wife's actions:
"He followed her into the kitchen, where she acquired keys, phone, and bag. It came to him, what she was doing. She was leaving. This made him anxious. He realized that with her gone, he would be obligated to himself. To remember to eat. To remember that he had eaten. ... To zip his fly. To occupy the present moment. Suddenly, he hated her. ... He hated her right down to the wayfaring look of [her] shoes.
In other stories, like "A Map of the Simplified World" mutual incomprehension is tinged with comedy. The story unfolds through the perspective of Ji-won, who's in third grade in Queens, one of the most diverse places in America. Ji-won's well-meaning white teacher has a thing about maps, using them to honor the origins of her immigrant students. But, on the playground a rougher-though-less-strained celebration of diversity reigns. Ji-won says:
At recess, on the blacktop, everyone forgot all about the world map and called each other zips, schmoes, whiteys, chinks, kebabs, bananas, brownies, towelheads. No one thing was worse than another.
All these stories are standouts, but the title story "Skinship" is in a class of its own. Our narrator is a 13-year-old Korean girl named So-hyun who describes how one morning, she and her brother skip school. What we quickly learn is that they're not cutting, but fleeing with their mother to an aunt's house in Virginia, because their father is abusive. So-hyun's language is a vivid-yet-restrained master class in the art of show don't tell. During one of her father's rages, for instance, So-hyun describes her mother as "just the motionless hem of a skirt."
When the trio arrives in Virginia, So-hyun meets her aunt, uncle and cousin, Susie, who's her age and coolly telegraphs the message that she and her family aren't welcome. So-hyun comes to realize that her mother has traded one form of servitude for another:
If my aunt hadn't returned in time to start dinner, our mother would pad into the kitchen. ... If laundry had been left in the washer, our mother would move it to the dryer. ... I would try not to look too often at her face --was she happy? unhappy? — knowing that this might embarrass her. Instead, I would watch her hands, which were also able to convey a certain mood. A kind of deadpan expertise. A lack of expectations. Fold and stack, fold and stack. Susie's neon crop tops. Our uncle's pouched cotton briefs.
You may think you know where this story is going, but you'd be wrong. Choi is the kind of writer whose work creates situations and emotions so complex, we don't even have the words for them, at least not in English. In this extraordinary collection, Choi nudges us readers into widening our vocabularies."
I really liked some of the short stories in this book and a couple of them just so-so.
I think The Art of Losing was my favorite. It's in Best American Short Stories 2018. It's told from the perspective of a husband with Alzheimer's.
“First Language,” about driving to pick up the son, was pretty devastating.
In the title story, a woman comes to the U.S. with her children (to get away from her abusive husband) and stays with her sister and brother-in-law and niece. It is a difficult situation for the new arrivals, who are not fully welcomed.
From Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air: "Once in a while, in the torpid weeks of late summer, a new writer appears whose voice has so much zest and authority, they pre-emptively steal some of the spotlight from the big Fall books. Skinship, a just-published short story collection by Yoon Choi, is in that magical category of debuts. Reading Choi's stories reminds me of how I felt when I first read the works of other singular sensations like Kevin Wilson or Karen Russell, writers who do things with language and storytelling that no one else has quite done before.
Skinship consists of eight pretty long short stories, most of them exploring the Korean immigrant experience in America. I know: immigration is hardly a fresh subject and it's especially popular in memoirs and fiction these days. But, it's Choi's approach, the way her stories unexpectedly splinter out from a single life to touch upon decades of family history shaped by immigration that make them something special.
Take the story, "First Language," whose mild title doesn't prepare you for the slew of disturbing details to come. The story opens with a husband and wife driving through the Lincoln Tunnel, from New York to New Jersey. Our narrator, the wife, is named Sae-ri and she opens by telling us: "I cannot guess what my husband is thinking as we drive back to Second Chance Ranch one Friday in October."
As we learn, there's an entire life's worth of backstory vacuum-packed into that sentence: a semi-secret out-of-wedlock birth, emigration from Korea for an arranged marriage in America, and the perceived need for the kind of "second chances" offered at that ranch. If Sae-ri can't "guess what [her] husband is thinking," he'd surely slam his foot on the brake if he knew what was going on in her mind.
That condition of opacity marks most of Choi's marriages, as well as other relationships here. Despite the affection many of her characters share, most are unable or unwilling to fully translate their private lives to each other. In the poignant story, "The Art of Losing," that condition of opacity is literal: An elderly man struggles with early Alzheimer's. Here he is, trying to process his blithely oblivious wife's actions:
"He followed her into the kitchen, where she acquired keys, phone, and bag. It came to him, what she was doing. She was leaving. This made him anxious. He realized that with her gone, he would be obligated to himself. To remember to eat. To remember that he had eaten. ... To zip his fly. To occupy the present moment. Suddenly, he hated her. ... He hated her right down to the wayfaring look of [her] shoes.
In other stories, like "A Map of the Simplified World" mutual incomprehension is tinged with comedy. The story unfolds through the perspective of Ji-won, who's in third grade in Queens, one of the most diverse places in America. Ji-won's well-meaning white teacher has a thing about maps, using them to honor the origins of her immigrant students. But, on the playground a rougher-though-less-strained celebration of diversity reigns. Ji-won says:
At recess, on the blacktop, everyone forgot all about the world map and called each other zips, schmoes, whiteys, chinks, kebabs, bananas, brownies, towelheads. No one thing was worse than another.
All these stories are standouts, but the title story "Skinship" is in a class of its own. Our narrator is a 13-year-old Korean girl named So-hyun who describes how one morning, she and her brother skip school. What we quickly learn is that they're not cutting, but fleeing with their mother to an aunt's house in Virginia, because their father is abusive. So-hyun's language is a vivid-yet-restrained master class in the art of show don't tell. During one of her father's rages, for instance, So-hyun describes her mother as "just the motionless hem of a skirt."
When the trio arrives in Virginia, So-hyun meets her aunt, uncle and cousin, Susie, who's her age and coolly telegraphs the message that she and her family aren't welcome. So-hyun comes to realize that her mother has traded one form of servitude for another:
If my aunt hadn't returned in time to start dinner, our mother would pad into the kitchen. ... If laundry had been left in the washer, our mother would move it to the dryer. ... I would try not to look too often at her face --was she happy? unhappy? — knowing that this might embarrass her. Instead, I would watch her hands, which were also able to convey a certain mood. A kind of deadpan expertise. A lack of expectations. Fold and stack, fold and stack. Susie's neon crop tops. Our uncle's pouched cotton briefs.
You may think you know where this story is going, but you'd be wrong. Choi is the kind of writer whose work creates situations and emotions so complex, we don't even have the words for them, at least not in English. In this extraordinary collection, Choi nudges us readers into widening our vocabularies."
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