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Seventeen-year-old Ginny Park is about to get expelled from high school—again. Stephanie, the picture book author who took Ginny into her Oregon home after she was kicked out of school in Hawaii, isn't upset: she only wants to know why.
But Ginny has always been in-between. She can't bring herself to open up toanyone about her past, or about what prompted her to flee her native Japan.
Then, Ginny finds a mysterious scrawl among Stephanie's scraps of paper and storybook drawings that changes everything: The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?
Ginny sets off on the road in search of an answer, with only her journal as a confidante. In witty and brutally honest vignettes, and interspersed with old letters from her expatriated family in North Korea, Ginny recounts her
adolescence growing up Zainichi, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, and the incident that forced her to leave years prior.
Inspired by her own childhood, author Chesil creates a portrait of a girl who has been fighting alone against barriers of prejudice, nationality, and injustice all her life—and one searching for a place to belong.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 14, 2022 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781705072028
- File size: 102097 KB
- Duration: 03:32:42
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from April 18, 2022
Chesil’s introspective debut, set in 2003, follows 17-year-old Tokyo-born Korean Pak Jinhee, who goes by Ginny Park and has never felt at home in the many places she’s inhabited. After fleeing from discrimination for being Zainichi Korean in Tokyo and getting expelled from a Catholic high school in Hawaii, Ginny lives in Oregon with her presumed-white host mother, Stephanie, an award-winning author. Once again facing imminent expulsion, Ginny has three days to decide if she’ll apply herself academically and take control of her future, or remain resigned to her fate, until she’s inspired by Stephanie’s writing—“The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?”—to dive headlong into the past she’s been running from. Using a nonlinear narrative and short chapters interspersed with letters from Ginny’s grandfather, who lives in North Korea, Chesil’s intimate-feeling novel offers glimpses into Ginny’s life leading up to the present, including the incident that compelled her to leave Tokyo. Ginny is an exceptionally complex character, who is both quiet and reserved while brimming with passionate determination to combat injustice. This affecting novel sensitively explores diaspora, prejudice, and the struggle of finding a place to belong. Ages 13–up.
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