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    All Woman and Springtime
    All Woman and Springtime
    All Woman and Springtime
    Audiobook11 hours

    All Woman and Springtime

    Written by Brandon W. Jones

    Narrated by Christine Williams

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Two orphan girls are taken from their jobs in a pants factory in North Korea, spirited across the Demilitarized Zone to be sex workers in the South, and eventually shipped to the United States. What propels the story is Gi, the heroine: a tender-hearted genius who loses everything yet refuses to be destroyed. #160;#160;Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, All Woman and Springtime reveals with chilling accuracy life behind North Korea#8217;s iron curtain, the horrific underworld of the sex trade, and the resilience of a spirit in the midst of unspeakable oppression.#160;
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781611747768
    All Woman and Springtime

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    Reviews for All Woman and Springtime

    4/5

    106 ratings27 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book was so obviously written by a man who has no concept of how female anatomy works. Decent story but laughable in places.
    • 4/5
      I didn't know what to expect from this book, but found it to be a well-written and moving novel about North Korean women who are sold into the sexual slavery trade in South Korea. They are eventually transported to America in a shipping container, barely surviving, and some of them escape the trade. It rings true, making me think the author, a man, has met someone with this background.
    • 4/5
      Really 3.5 stars, but I felt like rounding up. This book caught my eye because of my obsession with North Korea. And I think the author does a great job with the setting, and with its effect on Gyong-Ho in particular. (One sometimes gets the feeling that Jones was so interested in Gyong-Ho he forgot to develop his other characters, especially Cho.) But the dark plot tends toward melodrama at times, and the quasi-happy ending feels unearned.
    • 3/5
      From North Korea, South Korea, and finally to Seattle, Washington, a disturbing book. Life wasn't easy for Il-sun and Gi in a North Korea orphanage. Il-sun had come from a privileged lifestyle until her mother died and left her an orphan at which time all her hopes of marrying well and maintaining that lifestyle dry up. Gi's been left an orphan after her family has been arrested for not paying proper respect to the Great Leader and Dear Leader's portraits. Grandmother, parents, and herself wound up brutalized in a slave labor camp where they died. Il-sun, even in the orphanage, is still attempting to climb the social ladder from which she fell and she feels that a relationship with Gianni is a start. Little does she realize that Gianni's business also includes human trafficking. Gi winds up with Il-sun because the Foreman Hwang of the garment factory needs her to disappear. When they try and escape their drug addicted "owner" he sells them to a Korean Mafia run brothel where they're kept ignorant of where they even are.
    • 4/5
      Mesmerizing and beautiful and somewhat brutal.
    • 4/5
      A haunting and hard-hitting book: first exploring life in North Korea for young women, but then also delving into the brutality of human trafficking and sex slavery. Not an easy read emotionally, but a powerful, well-done story that lingers with you.
    • 4/5
      All Woman and Springtime is the first novel by Brandon W. Jones who has taken on the topics of North Korea and human trafficking in one big gulp of a story. The story centers on two young women who are about to age out of a women's orphanage in North Korea. Gi (Gyong-ho) was orphaned in a concentration camp after inadvertently revealing a trivial infraction by her family's care of "the Dear Leader's" portrait hanging in their home...it had dust on it. Her torture in the camp is graphically described and she survives only by withdrawing into a world of math and numbers, an area in which she is a savant. Il-sun is the daughter of a deceased military officer. Her older brother died in a concentration camp because of his outspoken behavior. She became orphaned when her mother died in her early teens. Il-sun has dreams of marrying well and living happily ever after in so far as that is defined in North Korean terms.Part 1 of the book details their lives in the orphanage and their work in a sewing factory. The deprivation, hunger, and meanness of spirit is brought home through the narrative and anecdotes. Gi is merely trying to survive and is looking forward to when she and Il-sun will leave the orphanage. Il-sun is acting more like an adolescent that a westerner might recognize. It is Il-sun's flirtations that move the story into the second part of the book.Part 2 chronicles their transport across the DMZ between North and South Korea under the belief that the North Korean authorities are after them. Instead they, along with another young woman, Cho, are sold as sex slaves to a South Korean thug. Again the narrative brings home the effect of their isolated lives in the North. One anecdote described how startled the women were to see an overweight person and their first interaction with fast food. The rest of this section describes their captivity as sex slaves and the machinery of the porn empire their captor has built. Some of this is brutally described. With the help of another captive woman who is South Korean, they develop an escape plan with a tragic outcome that causes all four of them to be sold.Part 3 of the book takes place in Seattle in a Korean mafia owned brothel. They are kept indoors and not allowed to wear shoes. They are "branded" with the gang's tattoos as is the madame and the shady doctor who comes to care for them. After more suffering, there is an upbeat ending to the book.The story is compelling. The author's writing is adequate to the story. In journeying through the story, there are characters that are introduced then left behind. Some reviews fault the author for that, but I suspect that it brings home the nature of human trafficking....people (mostly women and children) disappear and are never heard from again. So we don't learn what happens to the mistress of the orphanage, or the woman who saved Gi from the concentration camp and other characters. Given the topics, it would have been artifice to have them all tied up neatly at the end of this story.I give the book 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      Mesmerizing and beautiful and somewhat brutal.
    • 4/5
      This book was an interesting look in to both the sex slave trade and the experience of the people of North Korea. I haven't read any thing about North Korea and found it very interesting. Most people are aware of if leaders and it closed off nature but I was not really aware of what it was like for its residents. This combined with the scary ease which women can be traded sold and transported against their will just a small change of their luck. Serious and somewhat tragic this was and interesting and well written novel.
    • 3/5
      I'd never read a book based in North Korea before. To be honest, most of what I know comes from the media and the internet, and I think there are actually few pieces of literature out there that focus on the people and what their lives are like. Aside from the funny memes on Tumblr, do we really know what they think? How they feel? I'm not so sure. In my research during this book (because let's be honest, I google like the wind, especially when it's a topic I know little about) I found tons of information on the country itself and its weird policies and traditions, but nothing about the actual residents, and I think that's because we have very little access to them. They are cut off from the world, after all. So this book was refreshing in that sense.I knew it would be depressing, bleak, and heartbreaking. And it was. But I was surprised by my lack of connection to the characters. I expected to feel a lot for these women and everything they were going through, and I finally did towards the end, but up until that point, I cared very little. I'm not sure why that was because the book was really upsetting and graphic, but I think it had to do with the writing style that seemed to grow increasingly detached as the book went on, and this was not a deliberate style thing as it did not match up with the characters' actions. Another thing that frustrated me to no end were the outrageous amount of POVs. Every time a new character was introduced, we got a new POV. No, seriously. I think there were like three characters over the entire span of the book that did not have their own POV. And then the girls would move to a different place, and the characters that did not go along? Well we never heard from them again. So not only were there about ten different perspectives in this book, but some disappeared and never came back. I've never seen anything like this before and I didn't like it. It was very confusing, distracting, and kept me from getting attached to the characters, and to be completely honest, most of the voices sounded the same. Some POVs had only one or two sections, and then no more. I wish we had spent more time with the three main women, and that the author had chosen to focus his narrative on them so I could have gotten to know them better. What makes or breaks a book for me is the connection I feel to the characters. It's okay if I hate a character, but I must care one way or another or else you've lost me.I cried at the end though, which honestly surprised me after all the complaining I had done in my head. But I think it's because I thought about how that would translate to real life and I connected it to my grandfather, and bam. TEARS. The things these women went through. So atrocious, and not one iota of happiness in their lives. Whoever wrote on the cover that this book was uplifting needs their eyes checked. Completely not true. There is hope at the end, but the book ends so abruptly, and I never got a chance to really process what happened. And one main character disappeared to never be heard from again and I wanted to know what happened to her. I know all questions can't be answered, but I was left feeling unsatisfied.Despite all my grievances with this book, I really did enjoy it. I hardly put it down and I finished it in a couple of days which is a record for me. But I am not sure if it has to do with the fact that I gobble up anything Asian fiction, or because it was actually good. Because honestly, the technical issues with this one kept me from being able to rate it above 3 stars. I really wanted to, but in the end, it needed some work, and the editor needed to fix the POV situation. Still, I think it is worth reading if you have an interest in North Korea, as there are not very many of these types of books out there.
    • 4/5
      This book tells of Gyong-ho and Il -sun, North Korean teenage orphans, the unfortunate circumstances of their lives, the poor conditions they lived in, and their horrible mistreatment. Gyong-ho is a mathematical genius who disappears into herself as she counts numbers and does problems in her head as a means of coping with her circumstances. I found this aspect of her character to be the most interesting and wish it was explored more thoroughly. The sexual parts of the book were overdone for a serious novel, and at times seemed gratuitous. Overall, it was a good read.
    • 3/5
      All Woman and Springtime is an engrossing book depicting the story of 2 friends who begin as orphans in North Korea and wind up being sold into the sex trade of South Korea and then the US. I found the novel difficult to read at times, but honestly, what story set in North Korea isn't? The journey of Gi and Il Sung is a long, rough road littered with abuse and tragedy. Jones' writing was nothing to write home about but I still could not tear myself away from the story simply because it was captivating. While the ending isn't all sunshine, rainbows, and puppies, it does offer the read a but of hope for the surviving girls. This book isn't for the faint of heart or someone who is looking for a feel good read. It is still worth the read and will introduce a world I'm fairly confident many readers are unfamiliar with.
    • 4/5
      A wonderfully thought provoking story of two young ladies who grown up as orphans in North Korea. The two may be polar opposites in personality but their devotion to each other knows no bounds as experience their heartbreaking story with them. Their journey ends in American, but the route they took was one of sexual scandal and lies. A great read for anyone interested in knowing more of the difference between North & South Korea and what some women go through just to become free.
    • 5/5
      A provacative and heartbreaking novel of sexual slavery and the two young girls inadvertently caught in its trap. Before circumstances brought Il-sun to a North Korean orphanage she was the daughter of a privileged family living in relative luxury. Gyong-ho, by contrast, barely survives the daily horrors of a prison camp. Her only salvation for her fragile mental state was to escape into the concepts of numbers. When brought to the orphanage, it is Il-sun who nurses the broken spirit of Gyong-ho back to life. Wanting better circumstances in their lives, the girls fall victim to the boyfriend of Il-sun and his many lies. He sells them into sexual slavery in the Dmz. A long dark spiral downward ensues as the girls realize a life of degradation and abuse. Very well written debut novel that will open the reader's eyes to the evils of human trafficking.
    • 4/5
      While hard to read at times, I found myself completely engrossed by the story and the characters. This is a story of two friends forced into a new world and having everything that they have known challenged. I did have some difficulty connecting to one of the main characters and felt that the transition between the second and third part of the story seemed slightly rushed. Overall this was a great story with a definite bittersweet feeling.
    • 4/5
      I’ve read many non-fiction books about North Korea, however, this is the first fiction book I’ve read that dealt with the horrors of North Korea as well as sex trafficking. Although I have some knowledge of what goes on in North Korea, this book gave my ideas breath. The horror embodied in three women gave me pause.We watch two friends go from families with vastly different circumstances to an orphanage where they become best friends. The story proceeds to take us on a journey of these two girls as well as others who were sold into the sex slave business. Here it became a little graphic for my taste, although I do understand the necessity to bring to light what occurs in this business. I just felt it was a little over done and a lot could have been said without using such strong imagery.However, as the story progressed further, it became more interesting as we watch these women grow in friendship, fight for survival and learn how to trust again.This story’s outcome is bittersweet but satisfying.I was originally thinking a 3.5 star rating, but the last few chapters moved it up the ½ star. Not the best writing books I’ve read, but one of the most touching books I’ve read in a while.
    • 4/5
      As another reviewer said "This is one those books you finish and for days afterward you are left with a sense of loss because you miss the characters." I agree wholeheartedly. This book shadows teenagers from North Korea as they are sold into the sex trade in South Korea, and then eventually to the United States. It was heartbreaking and brutal in detail, and to know that situations like the ones Il-Sun and Gi were put through still happen is horrific. The characters were very convincing and compelling. I do feel that the end of the book wrapped up fairly quickly compared to the trials that the girls experienced. I was absorbed in this book the whole time and recommend it highly.
    • 4/5
      This is one those books you finish and for days afterward you are left with a sense of loss because you miss the characters. As with many good stories, the beginning is a bit slow but it was necessary in order to lay the foundation for the characters’ psyche. The descriptions of the astonishing amount of brainwashing by the North Korean government are both fascinating and frightening, so much so that I caught myself questioning how much I really know about the rest of the world and whether or not my knowledge is little more than what’s been spoon fed to me by my own government and media.There are some pretty graphic descriptions of torture and forced sex but not so many that you are overwhelmed by them. The author does a good job of implying things so that you don’t have to read word for explicit word the horrific acts these women are subjected to.I did feel that the “mathematical genius” concept completely fell flat. Gi goes from calculating various numbers in her head in an effort to quiet her mind to solving an extraordinarily complex mathematical paradox? Farfetched, to say the least. ***Spoiler alert*** The ending was ok but not great. I felt the author neatly disposed of each character solely in an effort to wrap up the book. I would’ve liked to see a better description of the lives Gi and Cho built. I was perturbed by the killing off of Il-Sun and the flat disappearance of Jasmine not only because these seemed like lame endings to some captivating characters, but also because all hopes of a sequel were dashed.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing debut novel from my favorite publisher. Algonquin rarely disappoints readers of serious fiction, and this book is noteworthy for its prose and its subject matter. The insights into life in North Korea were obviously well researched and provide a chilling look at what is normal for people who have never known a different way of living. Sex trafficking is a harsh reality, and it is hoped that a heightened awareness of it will effect a change. I highly recommend this book and this very talented author.
    • 4/5
      A mesmerizing book that many will find hard to read. Gi, the main character, changes from a brutalized, terrified 10 year old to a near catatonic teen to a woman of untapped strength in this tale of a North Korean girl condemned and then rescued from a concentration camp. She finds a friend in the orphanage but when it is their time to leave the orphanage and strike out on their own, they are betrayed by Il-Sun’s lover and sold into trafficking in South Korea. When they try to escape they are transported to the US in a sealed container on a ship and become sex slaves. Eventually Gi is able to escape and finds a new life because of her ability with numbers. North Korea and human trafficking are shown graphically, but not exploitively. The sex (and there is indeed sex) is used to convey the horror and terror of young girls trapped in a life they cannot escape. I read this nearly 400 page book in just two days, compelled to keep reading and sorry when they book ended. Although horrifying, the book is also a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit. Americans may find themselves seeing the homeless and immigrants with a sense of unease and guilt after reading this book.
    • 2/5
      The tiny bit I learned about the cult of Kim Jong-Il and North Korea did not even begin to make up for mediocre writing, a voyeuristic foray into the world of sex slavery, and a plot that dragged sluggishly to a semi-happy (if wholly unbelievable) conclusion. The lack of identity symbolized by changing Korean names to "American" (Daisy and Toby) was reminiscent of ROOTS, and the reader is certainly invited to draw parallels to the Nazi concentration camps, but it all fell flat for me, including Gyong-Ho's mathematical genius. (How she goes from counting sequins on the bouncer's shirt to solving a previously unsolvable mathematical paradox is beyond me.) I wanted to love this book, but I couldn't get past the author's need to share every sordid detail of life in a brothel.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. While I have a vague understanding of conditions in North Korea, this definitely helped humanize it and bring it home a little more. Also, I'm slowly becoming aware of the massive problem that human trafficking is and this helped solidify that in my brain more too. This book made me want to so something to alleviate conditions in North Korea or fight against trafficking -- it made me want to take action somehow, though I don't know how. Also, the story itself, of course. It was a quick, easy read for me, the way the story flowed and how the sections were broken up. I also appreciated the different perspectives, not only of the victims, but of the ones perpetuating the problem as well. It helped to show many sides and feelings and rounded the book and story well.Also, superficially, the cover of the book is beautiful and I loved the texture/feel of it as well.
    • 5/5
      So amazing and heart breaking that I almost wish I could say I hated it.The first part of the book, set in North Korea, was so slow and detailed that I was about to set it aside and count it as a loss. Trust me, though, that you need those details to fully understand the rest. Dig through it and by the second part of the book you'll be so glad you did.
    • 5/5
      I have been staring at my computer for about half an hour, just trying to find words that adequately convey how profoundly this story moved me. Beautifully written, Jones' debut novel is a coming of age story about Gi, a North Korean girl with a propensity for mathematics. Gi goes from a labor camp to an orphanage to South Korea and Seattle as a sex slave. The story offers a beautiful study of contrasts, as Gi grows up experiencing the worst humanity has to offer, but also acts of kindness and friendship that show some of the best. The stories of other characters are skillfully woven throughout. To me, the best fiction teaches empathy, and Jones has done a masterful job expressing what it feels like to be North Korean and a modern day slave. Obviously not a happy, laugh out loud sort of story, this is an important work of fiction that I highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      An excellent view in the horrible life of women in North Korea. Two childhood friends living int the same orphanage become involved in a prostitution ring that enslaves them for most of their young lives. All Woman And Springtime is well written by first time author Brandon W. Jones. The shocking details of their enslavement make it impossible to put down. The characters are so well developed with rich personalities making you root for the best for each one. I highly recommend this novel and look forward to reading more written by Jones.
    • 4/5
      Many aspects of this novel were of interest to me, the setting in North and South Korea, the conditions and treatments in the prisoner's camps, the lack of food and freedom, and the story of the two girls in the orphanage. Il-Sun and Gi, meet in an orphanage, having traveled very different paths in their youth, and this is very much their story. Some of the parts were very difficult to read, the sexual slavery they became entrapped in but Gi manages to stay sane because she is a mathematical genius who runs numbers in her head whenever she can't cope. This novel has all the elements of a good story but I found it to be lacking depth and poignancy in its prose. I did like that it ended on a note of hope, at least for Gi.
    • 4/5
      I absolutely loved this book. It was extremely well-written and the characters were so fully developed I felt as if I knew them in real life. The narrative itself is a bit difficult to read at times--not from lack of style but from the grittiness portrayed. Overall, I highly recommend this book!