Banned Book Club
Books | Comics & Graphic Novels / General
3.9
(53)
Hyun Sook Kim
Ryan Estrada
A Junior Library Guild Selection "Highly recommended for readers passionate about activism." -- SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, Starred Review "Sure to inspire today's youthful generation of tenacious changemakers." -- BOOKLIST, Starred Review "The messages of hope are universal." -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Starred Review "A timely read about friendship amid chaos." -- NPR "It's hard to imagine a world where Banned Book Club could be more relevant than it is right now." -- A.V. CLUB When Kim Hyun Sook started college in 1983 she was ready for her world to open up. After acing her exams and sort-of convincing her traditional mother that it was a good idea for a woman to go to college, she looked forward to soaking up the ideas of Western Literature far from the drudgery she was promised at her family's restaurant. But literature class would prove to be just the start of a massive turning point, still focused on reading but with life-or-death stakes she never could have imagined. This was during South Korea's Fifth Republic, a military regime that entrenched its power through censorship, torture, and the murder of protestors. In this charged political climate, with Molotov cocktails flying and fellow students disappearing for hours and returning with bruises, Hyun Sook sought refuge in the comfort of books. When the handsome young editor of the school newspaper invited her to his reading group, she expected to pop into the cafeteria to talk about Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Scarlet Letter. Instead she found herself hiding in a basement as the youngest member of an underground banned book club. And as Hyun Sook soon discovered, in a totalitarian regime, the delights of discovering great works of illicit literature are quickly overshadowed by fear and violence as the walls close in. In BANNED BOOK CLUB, Hyun Sook shares a dramatic true story of political division, fear-mongering, anti-intellectualism, the death of democratic institutions, and the relentless rebellion of reading.
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Author
Hyun Sook Kim
Pages
198
Publisher
Iron Circus Comics
Published Date
2020
ISBN
194582042X 9781945820427
Community ReviewsSee all
"I think this is one of the most real books I've experienced. Each character has there own personal struggle or situation that you get to see them grow through. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about worldly injustices. Everything about this story is so beautifully written, AND it has a mostly happy ending"
Neek's Rusty Sword
"It was a good story to tell. This is a graphic novel about a girl that gets involved in a book club that reads banned books. It was a story that needed to be told but i wish that it was told better. <br/><br/>The book was kinda chunky. It left like that it was missing some information. The ending didn’t feel natural. It was the characters meeting up years later and going to the protest. One of them was talking to kids and was like “I was doing this before you could vote”. The kids were like “wooooowwww”. Then more characters start talking about what they’ve been doing. Even though it us based on a true story it felt forced. <br/><br/>I couldn’t get attached to the characters. I think that could partly be because it is a graphic novel. It is easier to get attached to characters when you see their thoughts and emotions. <br/><br/>Also on the cover it saids that it is a dramatic true store. On the text on the back it saids that it took ingredients from the true story and made this book."
Niffty