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There are currently 20 member reviews
for All Woman and Springtime
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Angela S. (Hartland, MI)
All Woman and Springtime
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of North Koreans and also naive trusting girls who are sold into the sex slave industry. The characters were believable and really pull you into the story. This book would be great for people interested in foreign cultures, as it opened my eyes to how people from the isolated country of North Korea live and think. I could not get enough of this book and the characters. My only complaint is that the book had to end!
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Audrey C. (Canfield, OH)
All Woman and Springtime
In All Woman and Springtime, Jones easily envelopes the reader from page one into the lives of his two main characters and the journey they take from an orphanage in North Korea to South Korea and finally to Seattle. They become sex workers and suffer one indignity after another. This novel is not for a reader who suffers from
"acute cerebral prudery" because Jones explicitly describes the physical, psychological, and sexual abuses heaped upon each girl. Certainly, this is a timeless theme! The girls display the pains of what the atrocities of asocial ignorance, coupled with immaturity and ingrained fear can do to destroy them. Yet, the book's title subtly hints at a potential metamorphosis and perhaps all will somehow be righted so that the girls can be productive and develop self-worth.
Early on a weakish character, Gi, slowly but methodically displays tiny glimmers of survival and coping with her escapes into numbers and calculations. Therein is the hope! To be sure, man's inhumanity to man still exists. But, Gi persists with her retreats into the mathematical world and sustains herself. She proves that somehow the human spirit can overcome these inequities and human interactions, trust, and chance opportunities eventually can create an all woman and springtime - a being to herald a time of rebirth in mind, body, and soul!
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Pat M. (san antonio, TX)
Will recommend to my book club members and friends
"All Woman and Springtime" grabbed by attention with the first chapter and held it to the very last chapter. This is a coming of age story, but it is so much more. It is so easy to get involved with the characters and the plot. I would love to see this on a screen and/or a sequel.
Brandon Jones - give up sculpture and guitar - just write books! I will recommend this book to my book club members and friends.
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Rhonda M. (Concord, OH)
An eye opening book
All Woman and Springtime caught me in the first 10 pages. After that it's hard to put down. What a wonderful new writer. As I read this book I became totally absorbed in the mind-numbing journey of Gi and her friends. North Korea is not a place written about very often so I felt as if I myself had stepped behind the curtain of North Korea. And even knowing that the events in the book really do happen I felt it all as if I was one of the girls. Brandon Jones manages to capture their emotions brilliantly so that I felt devastated when they were and buoyant when they were. And as every page was read I started reaching towards the end and praying that the end would be what I wanted it to be. Thank you Mr. Jones for bringing this world to me and opening my eyes to it.
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Madeline Mora-Summonte (Florida)
All Woman and Springtime
By the end of the first page, we are fully in Gi's world, drawn in by strong language and powerful descriptions that elevate, never disguise, the actual story. Every character is complex and complicated, and our hearts ache, break and race for these girls.
This is not an easy story to read. It is moving and gut-wrenching, and at first glance, it seems there is no hope. But it turns out there is hope, and strength, in perhaps the least likely of people.
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Theresa R. (Sierra Madre, CA)
Good book
This book was well written and very easy to get through. I liked the way the author brought each character to life and you really get to know each one - liking some and despising others. I liked the story as a whole - bringing to light the subject of "slavery" today.
I think this would be a good book club read as it would bring about some good discussions.
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Beverly J. (Huntersville, NC)
Survival of the Fittest
This well-paced debut novel following two girls lured into human trafficking will chill you to the bones. The effective use of the landscape makes it another character/narrator of the story, and thus understanding one place helps us to understand another, thus making it a universal story. We learn that survival depends not only adopting to your present situation but allowing your mind to believe there is hope, even if it is a unattainable hope. From the tight control of the North Korean political culture controlling every aspect of an individual’s life by a whim to the unforgiving world of sex workers as a commodity, every reader will be touched by this heart-breaking tale.
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