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Her Tale of Shim Chong took me by surprise when I finally got around to reading what I thought would be something I would eventually drop after a few chapters.

What I actually found was an immensely thoughtful tale of women - not just the two protagonists - women doing their best to survive in a world that has knives pointing at them, ready to wound at the slightest opening. Though that's already enough of a hook, what really pulled me in was the careful treatment of class dynamics in the world. The difference in station between our sacrificial bride and the titular beggar-girl is like ... night and day. Their struggles are completely different. Chong is right to call bullshit on equating the struggles of having to fight for your next meal and in-law political intrigue, but she throws herself into it alongside her new 'friend' nonetheless, in what starts out as a sugar mommy kind of situation and deepens into something so much more.

It's very easy for a topic like this to devolve into almost pornographic misery, with nothing but examples on examples of the ways women are subjugated and have their wings clipped not only during life but even after death (ancestral cemetery scene was a real wow), but this book keeps a hopeful undertone in the middle of, or despite, it all.

We start out already knowing how this is going to end, right from chapter one, but the journey there has given so much food for thought to me. As this series was only brought to my attention with the announcement of a second season/volume, I write this having finished the first season, and regardless of how things are going to go, I give this a 5 star rating, simply for the way the telling has been going, the thoughtful dialogue, the palpable class violence, the way it even helped me understand more of myself while keeping me rooting for our two protagonists the whole time.

Can't recommend it enough. While some parts may seem over-the-top at times (for me the monk is an absolute mood-killer), I believe there's a lot one can gain from reading this.