We’re on a roll with translated novels this year! More specifically, Korean novels like The Trunk and A Magical Girl Retires. And today, we had the honor of reviewing Gu Byeong-mo’s new novel, Apartment Women.
Apartment Women follows the lives of four women living in a communal housing program as part of a government initiative to boost the national birth rate. But the reality of communal living is far from ideal for these families.
You’ll want to put on your thinking cap for this novel, as it addresses a lot of real societal issues and questions a lot of the norms expected of the modern mother. Let’s talk about Gu Byeong-mo’s Apartment Women!
Book Overview: Apartment Women
Content Warnings: sexism, cheating, mention of sexual harassment
Summary: When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.
Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colors. Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start?
A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Apartment Women incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women’s parenting labor, challenging the age-old assumption that “it takes a village” to raise a child.
It Explores The Reality Of Motherhood
The thing we appreciate most about Apartment Women is that it addresses a lot of aspects of motherhood in modern times. What happens when the stay-at-home dad still requires detailed childcare instructions from the working mom like Yojin? What happens when the WFH mom struggles to meet deadlines while still trying to raise her child like Hyonae? Though we must read it through the lens of Korean culture and its standards, we can also apply it to anywhere in the world.
The Dialogue Is Too Real
Apartment Women does an amazing job at being relatable to mothers, wives, and women in general. Whether we’ve seen it happen to someone we know or experienced it firsthand, weaponized incompetence is a plague. Reading the conversations between both the couples and the neighbors in this book made us simmer with rage at times. Not to mention the complex thought processes that women like Yojin go through not to be misunderstood by others. We know that feeling all too well.
A subtle yet hard-hitting novel exploring various motherhood experiences and challenging gender norms, Gu Byeong-mo’s Apartment Women surprised us with its realness.
Apartment Women by Gu Byeong-mo releases on December 3rd, and you can preorder a copy of it here!
What do you think of Gu Byeong-mo’s Apartment Women? Which character(s) did you relate with the most? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
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