{"id":47124,"date":"2020-08-10T11:12:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T15:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=47124"},"modified":"2020-07-09T16:47:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T20:47:26","slug":"moms-by-yeong-shin-ma-translated-by-janet-hong-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/moms-by-yeong-shin-ma-translated-by-janet-hong-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Moms by Yeong-shin Ma, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"*STARRED REVIEW<\/strong>
\nExperiencing the tedious difficulty of household chores, Yeong-shin Ma writes in his must-not-skip author\u2019s note, is what made him \u201cthink more deeply about [his mother] and her life.\u201d That empathic appreciation inspired him to present her with an expensive notebook, requesting, \u201cIf you want your son to find success, write honestly about you and your friends, about your love life and theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma transformed that notebook, filled in less than a month by his mother, into Moms<\/em>, his first title to appear in English, adroitly translated by award-winning Korean Canadian Janet Hong.<\/p>\n

Long divorced from her gambling husband, Soyeon lives in a small apartment with her musician son. Her on-and-off-again boyfriend visits in the wee hours when he\u2019s drunk \u2013 he\u2019s a financial and emotional sinkhole, but she can\u2019t let him go. Her corporate cleaning job is tedious, but she has good (enough) friends with whom she regularly gossips, complains, drinks, laughs, and cries.<\/p>\n

Presented in stark black-and-white panels, these aging moms have nothing to hide: they\u2019re raucous, demanding, and sexual middle-aged women finding enjoyment despite useless partners, disappointing careers, unfulfilled dreams. They text at all hours, use dating apps, swear indiscriminately, steal other women\u2019s boyfriends, occasionally pummel one another with bare fists. Their greatest challenge, like people everywhere at every age, is loneliness \u2013 but even that can\u2019t stop Ma\u2019s fearsome mothers from living their best possible lives.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: “Graphic Novels,” Booklist<\/em>, July 2020<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2015 (Korea), 2020 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*STARRED REVIEW Experiencing the tedious difficulty of household chores, Yeong-shin Ma writes in his must-not-skip author\u2019s note, is what made him \u201cthink more deeply about [his mother] and her life.\u201d That empathic appreciation inspired him to present her with an expensive notebook, requesting, \u201cIf you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,73,37,6535,66],"tags":[84,6608,6668,10,11,149,7238,13,9195,39,9196],"class_list":["post-47124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-korean","category-repost","category-translation","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-gender-inequality","tag-janet-hong","tag-love","tag-moms","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-yeong-shin-ma"],"yoast_head":"\nMoms by Yeong-shin Ma, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist] - 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