Rating: 
Summary: excellent
Review: 1000 Chestnut Trees is a wonderful and highly enlightening book. Stout paints a very accurate and insightful portrait of Korea and its people. As a second-generation Korean-American, I was very well able to relate with Anna, in particular her experiences in modern-day Korea. Stout's impressions of Korea and Koreans are highly perceptive, and I was especially impressed with her ability to capture their essence in such a simple, easy manner. She also possesses a knack for humanizing each character in her novel, be it Uncle Hong-do or Anna herself. I found them highly believable and began to sympathize with them right away. The diction is very eloquent throughout the novel-it strikes a perfect balance between the abstract and the concrete. I read other reviews that criticize Stout for being too "flowery" and "eloquent", but I disagree. Her style is very clear and precise. (Besides, isn't eloquence supposed to be a good thing? One can never bee "too eloquent".) I have read quite a few books on Korean culture and history, but I have yet to find an author who can duplicate Stout's elegance and grace in presenting the topic.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: 1000 Chestnut Trees is a wonderful and highly enlightening book. Stout paints a very accurate and insightful portrait of Korea and its people. As a second-generation Korean-American, I was very well able to relate with Anna, in particular her experiences in modern-day Korea. Stout's impressions of Korea and Koreans are highly perceptive, and I was especially impressed with her ability to capture their essence in such a simple, easy manner. She also possesses a knack for humanizing each character in her novel, be it Uncle Hong-do or Anna herself. I found them highly believable and began to sympathize with them right away. The diction is very eloquent throughout the novel-it strikes a perfect balance between the abstract and the concrete. I read other reviews that criticize Stout for being too "flowery" and "eloquent", but I disagree. Her style is very clear and precise. (Besides, isn't eloquence supposed to be a good thing? One can never bee "too eloquent".) I have read quite a few books on Korean culture and history, but I have yet to find an author who can duplicate Stout's elegance and grace in presenting the topic.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for Korean-Americans.
Review: As a Korean-American who grew up in the U.S., I have pitifully little knowledge of Korean history. Reading Mira Stout's book, all the bits and pieces I had heard of my parents' and grandparents' lives in Korea came together, and I realized the magnitude of the difficulties they all had to overcome. Anna, the main character in the book, comes to better understand her mother by exploring the history of Korea--Japan's overbearing influence, the "yangban" class, World War II, and the division of North and South Korea. This book drew me closer to my own mother and heritage. I couldn't wait to tell my mother about the book and to ask her more about her own story.
My mother's Japanese-given name was Michiko--there's so much I never would have known if I hadn't read this book. Many thanks to the author.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for Korean-Americans.
Review: As a Korean-American who grew up in the U.S., I have pitifully little knowledge of Korean history. Reading Mira Stout's book, all the bits and pieces I had heard of my parents' and grandparents' lives in Korea came together, and I realized the magnitude of the difficulties they all had to overcome. Anna, the main character in the book, comes to better understand her mother by exploring the history of Korea--Japan's overbearing influence, the "yangban" class, World War II, and the division of North and South Korea. This book drew me closer to my own mother and heritage. I couldn't wait to tell my mother about the book and to ask her more about her own story.
My mother's Japanese-given name was Michiko--there's so much I never would have known if I hadn't read this book. Many thanks to the author.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Historical Journey
Review: As a second generation Korean-American like the author Mira Stout I have struggled to understand the 2 worlds that create my world. Do not read this book if you're going to get annoyed with the already mentioned, imperfect grammar and prose. However, if you're interested in Korean history through the eyes of people who've lived through the last 100 years of Korea's turbulent past, then read this book. It enabled me to better understand the traumas of war that my grandparents and parents endured, and finally initiated a revealing conversation with my father about subjects he has always avoided. For me, this book was a page turner that was nearly impossible to put down. Mira Stout made the 3 narrators of the novel real and pulled me into their lives, I didn't even notice the inconsistencies mentioned in the other reviews.
Rating:
Summary: dazzling & superb winner of a book
Review: I can't recommend this book more highly. Unlike the other related titles you list, this is goes way beyond the racial stereotype tearkerking genre to reach the stature of a major literary work. Stout writes beautifully and with depth and enormous compassion. This is an unsentimental and moving book, which I urge others to read and pass on to their friends. Forget that sniping review from Sydney!
Rating: 
Summary: Superficial
Review: I lived in Korea in the late-1970s and still possess affection for its people and interest in its history. I read this book to update my knowledge of how a 'modern' Korean looked at the world. Unfortunately I found it full of stereotypes, characters who were barely alive on the page. Only the dissolute brother held any interest. I found the descriptions of the family relationships were awkward and superficial. It's a pity because the scope and theme of the book is fascinating, and the mother's narration of historical events of interest, despite the blandness of her character. Overall I thought the author was too prepared to accept what Koreans think about themselves at face value, and not explore the differences between perception and reality. With the exception of a few pages, the final section reads more like a travelogue than a search for identity. Nice try but not quite there.
Rating: 
Summary: A heartfelt journey
Review: Overall, an emotional, heartfelt and satisfying journey into the history of 20th Century Korea told through the life of Mira's grandparents and mother. The book reads like an autobiography at times and is ornate and detailed, sometimes distractingly so. There are other little faults here, such as she doesn't get all the historical facts straight, she mispronounces (quite badly at times) Korean words and there are slight grammatical errors. However, this book has so many other positives that it outweighs the aforementioned negatives. You can tell that she's genuinely made a connection with the Korean side to her, both culturally, emotionally and intellectually. But at the same token, she makes herself sound like an outsider looking into the Korean culture from a window outside. That is actually a plus sometimes because she can draw out the aspects of Koreaness that would be compelling to a Western audience. She tells her mother's story with empathy and spirit and she describes her own journey into discovering her Korean side with conviction and sincerity. In the begining of the story she seems to see her Koreaness (Mira is 1/2 Korean on her mother's side) as almost a liability and something to be minimized. As the story unfolds, she see's her Koreaness as an important and essential part of who she is. By the end of it, she discovers a whole new side to her, almost a spiritual rebirth of a Koreaness that cannot be explained, quantified or even fully understood, but it can only be experienced and enjoyed. Overall, it's a highly enjoying book, that will even jerk a few tears. Despite it's small flaws, I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: somewhat disappointing
Review: The premise for this book was promising - but the substance was a disappointment to me. I almost felt the book should have been twice as long - and would have preferred to have the personality of the characters developed further. It just seemed to go too fast. I thoroughly enjoyed the historical aspects - in fact I learned alot I didn't know about the Korean War, etc. I don't doubt the fictional story is based in interesting historical fact - but great periods of time seemed to have been left out. For instance - it referred at one point to the younger son having been put in a sanitarium but the details of this interesting occurance was left out of the story. It was just an OK story.
Rating:
Summary: somewhat disappointing
Review: The premise for this book was promising - but the substance was a disappointment to me. I almost felt the book should have been twice as long - and would have preferred to have the personality of the characters developed further. It just seemed to go too fast. I thoroughly enjoyed the historical aspects - in fact I learned alot I didn't know about the Korean War, etc. I don't doubt the fictional story is based in interesting historical fact - but great periods of time seemed to have been left out. For instance - it referred at one point to the younger son having been put in a sanitarium but the details of this interesting occurance was left out of the story. It was just an OK story.
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