Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Marilyn and Me

I am a huge Marilyn Monroe fan and have read many books about her.
When I saw this book - I thought it sounded unique and that is definitely a good description of the book.

The Korean War is one I know very little about...it mentions that in this book that it is the forgotten war and I was very moved by the plight of the survivors in this book.

It was a great idea to have the pull of Marilyn entwined in this book...to get fans like me to read it when perhaps they may not have chosen too.

I am very glad I did...the entire story is so intricate and shows such honour to those that died and those that survived. I was very touched throughout and the historical fact and fiction is woven in a very clever way.

I also enjoyed the descriptions of Marilyn, of course, but by the time she appeared I was heavily invested in Alice and her plight. What she went through very much touched me and her feelings were conveyed so truthfully and well that the author should be highly commended for this.

Everyone should read this...to gain knowledge about an era often forgotten and because it is a beautiful and touching story of one woman's post war survival...with the glamour of her meeting Marilyn thrown in.

Thanks so much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Genuinely moving, but at times a bit jumbled and hard to follow. I don't think the relationship with Marilyn Monroe as a device was fully successfully executed, and I think it would have been more interesting just as an exploration of the main character.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


This book follows Alice, a survivor of the Korean War, as she tries to piece her life back together and deal with the aftermath of her wartime experiences. I knew nothing about the Korean War before reading this and it is definitely something I need to learn more about. Ji-Min Lee's writing style is readable and especially evocative when talking about locations and environments. I feel like the protagonist was flawed and definitely made mistakes but under the circumstances that she was in, I still sympathised with her throughout.

There are so many positive things I could say but unfortunately what brought this book down for me were the portion about Marilyn Monroe's visit. The emphasis on physical beauty against the backdrop of such harrowing larger issues seemed completely out of place and didn't seem to add anything to the story for me. I think the timeline was also very confusing as the chapters moved around in time but there were also flashbacks throughout so I often got confused about where we were.

Overall, I am glad I read this book and would like to read more about this place and time. There are aspects of the plot that I found too convenient but on the whole, I would recommend this book.

3 out of 5 stars!

I wanted to read this book as I absolutely love Marilyn Monroe but this book was not what I expected, it was more about Alice the interpreter/narrator and her life during the Korean War. I want more Marilyn so not for me thank you

Most of the story is told as remembered in 1954 by Alice, a young Korean woman who serves as an interpreter when Marilyn Monroe visits the American bases and gives several shows. You do feel the genuine affection of the author for Marilyn, but of course it isn't a book about Marilyn. Marilyn just acts as a decoy, perhaps because the author didn't think people would want to read a book solely about the Korean war?

It was a really moving novel though, and Alice takes you with her - in Seoul when people are fleeing, in the refugee camp where she ends up, and through the many horrors she witnesses and goes through in between. It is very well-written as well (or well translated) and very powerful.

I was pleasantly surprised at this book. Set in Korea just after the Korean War, it’s something I knew little about and although it’s a story it made me seek out further information about it. I loved the main character and could envisage her hardships. This is a well written book that I’d recommend.

Author Lee tells that this novel was inspired by two photos. The first of Marilyn Monroe meeting and performing for the American troops in Seoul in February 1954 – a trip made while she was supposed to be on honeymoon in Tokyo with her new husband Joe di Maggio. The second depicted an un-named Korean woman as an interpreter to the American forces in the years before this. The novel will meld aspects of the real trip with the story of “Alice” a fictional Korean working with the American forces at that time. Alice’s back story will be based on Lee’s imagination and on family stories of the impact of the wars and leading to the establishment of the regime of the “People’s Republic of Korea”, the intervention of the Americans leading to the partition of Korea that survives to this day.
The idea to arrange a meeting between the most important female glamour icon of the world at the time with a severely traumatised war survivor in a nation still in flux is an extraordinary concept to present, but Lee carries it off with superb artistry and in a totally believable fashion. This is a wonderful novel, thoughtful and full of interesting characters (as well as Marilyn and me), places, imagery and questions on relationships. “Alice” is the narrator and as she works through her difficult days in the lead up to the visit she ruminates on her past life as a teenager with older married lover – meeting a strange American the “second most important man her life” – through breakdown of her emotional life which ran in time with Korea falling into civil war . She had to survive this, – and her fragile part recovery 0ccurs with Seoul falling out of communist rule as the Americans re-engages in war here.
Thus we are told how she came to speak English, came to the attention of the Americans and was selected for her job. But we learn what the income saves her life in a city where she has no family left, friends are gone and where people are in poverty and starving. Her relative financial “security” is not matched in her mind as she copes with the memory of the war and her losses although a few stalwart women reach out to try and protect her and help her move forward. She has to cope with memories of not just the randomness of war, but the impact of the choices she made on others.
Meeting Marilyn, beautiful, wealthy, talented and supposedly mass “loved” she sees another female coping with her emotional demons. She sees the adulation of the fans, but nobody noticing that she is tired and ill, being asked to do too much. She sees her step through that to present her public character and charisma – a star. But of course the reader knows her ultimate truth that she too will have a married lover who will not acknowledge or respect her and she will die alone of a drug overdose - drugs that “nobody” will have any knowledge of how she acquired.
After the visit “Alice” will need to choose whether to move abroad with “her” American – who has been deceiving her in the past as to his role in her country – or stay and try and rebuild her life in Korea.
This is a wonderful novel, with strong female characters, women getting on with their not ideal lives. But it speaks of one’s public face, the need for quiet female support and trying to move beyond one’s own daily personal stresses and mental turmoil. But it comes too with a solid base of Korean history, not just the female personal reality, but the war and its dreadful impact on all – many of whom did not survive and just “disappeared” unrecorded in the mayhem. It asks questions of the reader – what is important? What is your personal responsibility for things happening around you? Are you entitled to happiness? Can you move towards it?

A jumbled novel with a tangential title and narrative focus, Marilyn and Me emptied the environment of post-war Korea of its tenacity and its struggles to focus only on the superfluous.

Marilyn and Me by Ji-Min Lee, translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim, was inspired by two photographs – one of a female interpreter standing between a UN soldier and a North Korean POW during the Korean War (1950-1953), and the other of Marilyn Monroe, who visited South Korea to boost the morale of the remaining US troops a year after the 1953 armistice which ended the Korean War.

While the title and description of the book will probably lead you to believe that the story centers on the tender friendship that develops between the famous Hollywood starlet and her Korean interpreter, the novel actually mainly focuses on the interpreter, a sensitive young woman, named Alice J. Kim (whose real Korean name is Kim Ae-sun), her experiences and involvement in the Korean War and her dramatic relationships with the two most important men in her life.

Written in first person, from the perspective of Alice J. Kim, who works as a typist for the US military and, at the beginning of the book, is assigned to be the interpreter for Marilyn Monroe during her brief trip to South Korea. The story is then told in alternating chapters, shifting back and forth in time, between Alice’s time with Marilyn and the flashbacks from Alice’s past that provide some historical context and background information about the events running up to and during the Korean War. These flashbacks also describe Alice’s personal experiences during this turbulent time in the Korean peninsula. We learn that Alice still harbours a lot of guilt over a specific traumatic event from her past. For the purpose of building narrative tension, snippets of information about this haunting event are interspersed throughout the book, but the full story of what exactly happened is only revealed close to the end of the novel.

While the author tried to draw some parallels between Alice and Marilyn who both put on an act for the people, particularly the men, around them to protect their true inner selves, the comparisons between these two troubled women and their imagined friendship felt somewhat forced and unconvincing. As Marilyn Monroe performs for thousands or admiring military men, she appears as a kind of symbol of damage and survival, rather than a sensitive, multifaceted woman. We get very little insight into Marilyn’s personality and she essentially serves as an inspiration for Alice to move on with her life and live it to the fullest by leaving her traumatic experiences in the past.

Ultimately, I found Marilyn and Me to be a moving story that explores some very interesting themes but that, unfortunately, got dragged down by its own structure. The sections of about Marilyn almost felt like an afterthought, and I totally agree with other reviewers who have pointed out that the story of a young woman’s experiences during the Korean War and the long-lasting psychological effects of those experiences would have been compelling enough, without the somewhat unnecessary subplot about Marilyn Monroe.

Deeply moving story set during the visit of Marilyn Monroe in Korea in 1954. Monroe's translator, a young Korean woman calling herself 'Alice', strikes up an unlikely friendship with the illusive star and over the course of Monroe's short visit, Alice is able to confront the ghosts of her own past.

Well written with bold imagery and ideas of survival, death, betrayal and beauty that stay with you.
Complex, interesting characters that felt believable. A korean protagonist was refreshing.
It lacked pace and clarity at moments but now I've read it can appreciate it more.

On the face of it you think this book is about the visit to US troops in Korea by Marilyn Monroe just after the end of the Korean war and her relationship with the Korean translator assigned to her. The story you are actually reading is about a very troubled lady called Alice who survived the war and is only just managing to survive life after the war. Alice's time accompanying Marilyn shows her an alternative view of the world - not always positive but this lets Alice rethink her own future as she faces up to her past.
Beautifully told, descriptive tale packed in to a short book.

‘The person I’m talking about isn’t really me, but an insane woman I am embodying. I can’t be myself. That’s the only way I can live with myself. I can only exist if I act out all of my truths along with all of the falsehoods.’

This short novel from Korean author Ji-min Lee centres on the character of Alice J. Kim, a young prematurely-grey haired woman working as a typist at a US military base just after the end of the Korean war. She is appointed as translator for the (real-life) visit of Marilyn Monroe to South Korea in early 1954 to boost the morale of the remaining US troops posted in the country. As the novel progresses Alice’s past, which has haunted her for years and is hinted at now and again, is revealed as the two main loves of her life – Yo Min-Hwan and Joseph – reappear in her life, forcing to face her demons. The book switches between 1954 and the years 1947-50, when Alice – real name Kim Ae-sun – is caught up in the Korean war, fleeing as events unfold around her. She is particularly haunted by thoughts of two little girls, named Chong-nim and Song-ha, and as events are finally related to us in a letter Alice writes we learn the true horrors of the Korean conflict and what has happened to her.

The two main characters seem to be the focus for the author, as she tries to make parallels between the two: the damaged, traumatised Alice and the (it seems) equally damaged Monroe, both of them putting on a front for the people around them. The climax of the book finds Alice, spattered in yellow paint and sitting in Monroe’s hotel bedroom: ‘Well, here we are, two fake blondes,’ says Monroe. This attempt to create another woman to contrast/mirror Alice’s predicament is also, more subtly, done by the use of the 1st-person present tense for the events in 1954, with Alice as the narrator (I laugh, I sit down, etc) and the use of the past tense for the historical events of the previous years (I stomped around the room, I waited, etc). For me, this worked for the book, as it underlines Alice’s attempts to distance herself from the past, to try to forget the person she was then, but as events unfold this is broken down and the novel ends in the now, in the present tense, as she starts to look forward.

There is an interesting afterword from the author in which she reveals that the inspiration for the book came from two photographs, one of a female interpreter during the war and another of Marilyn Monroe. I say this because, as much as I enjoyed the book, the two parts – Alice’s past and the present visit of Marilyn Monroe – just didn’t blend together. The ambition is there, but it either needed more flesh on the Monroe story to really make a parallel between the two women, or it needed to be more in the background and focus more on Alice. As it is, the Monroe visit seems merely to act as an excuse to reintroduce characters from Alice’s past who somehow get themselves attached to the visit. The translation, done by Chi-Young Kim, is fine, but whether it’s a problem with the original text or it is something in the translation, again it doesn’t quite flow. There are an enormous number of similes throughout the book; everything is ‘like’ something else, and it starts to become a little irritating.

On the whole, this is an admirable attempt at exploring the horrors of war, and the trauma of its survivors. There is a sub-plot involving spies and Alice is roped in to helping, which is all a little unbelievable, and again detracts from the impact of the main story. The themes of female identity, of the power of names and the play of real/fake appearances are all there, and are intriguing, but for me they are let down too much by the structure and some of the writing. I really wanted to like this more, so 3 stars for ambition and the ideas.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

This book wasn't at all what I expected, but it was brilliant.

Marilyn Monroe is visiting Korea and Alice is her translated for the trip.
Over the course of a few days you get a glimpse into Marilyn and personal and public life, but the real story is Alice's.

Through a series of flashbacks and memories the story of Alice's experiences of the Korean war are revealed.

Some of this book is brutal. But there is warmth and humour and sadness as very human stories of relationships and survival in extraordinary times emerge.

Thank you Netgalley for thos advanced copy in return for an honest review. I love it!

Set against the very raw aftermath of the Korean War, this little gem of a novel examines how post-war Korea welcomed Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe through the eyes of the PTSD-addled translator who guided her through the country. Though the translator is fictional, the realities of the war she suffered through are harrowing, intimate and horrifying, with Lee's brilliant prose expertly soaking up the atmosphere of being trapped in a war zone.

For being so small- this book just about hits 160 pages- there is so much detail packed into every page. The horrors of war are embedded on every single pore of the main character, Alice. Lee captures with great skill the disillusion of post-war Korea, of the struggle between capitalism and communism that played out on their shores, of the refugee crisis and the struggle to return to normality once the conflict has played out. The author describes in her note as 'the forgotten war', and this book is a brilliant way to learn about the conflict, particularly if you are in the West.

This novel not only offers a brief glimpse into the life of the troubled movie star, but her very appearance in this book mirrors the absurdity of the post-war Korean state and is a brilliant subject for this story. Though she doesn't feature often, she is important: she represents all that one could become, even when the image up close is not as beautiful as it could be. An astonishing, accomplished debut about unlikely friendship and the aftermath of war on the women.

Such a beautiful and lyrical book. Not at all what I was expecting considering the title but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Ji-Min Lee's writing is so raw and viseral which makes this difficult to put down and even harder to forget about once you've finished reading.

This was an emotional read about a woman traumatised by the Korean war. Alice ends up being a translator for Marilyn Monroe while on a brief tour in Korea. I barley knew anything about the Korean war, and this gave me an interesting insight. Jin-min Lee packs a lot of feeling in this slim novel and I had to keep reading. Highly reccomend this one.

I thought this was An interesting read. I didn't know much about Marilyn Monroe or the war, so I found this book informative, although obviously a fictional account.

This story had so much potential but unfortunately fell flat for this reader. Alice J. Kim (Monroe's assigned interpreter) is the narrator of this story which is more about the impacts of war on Kim herself than her relationship with Marilyn. Through a series of flashbacks to earlier in the war we learn Alice's story while she interprets for Monroe in the present day of the novel. But the so-called "relationship" with Monroe is underdeveloped and provides a flimsy link to the past. Overwritten at times - there were at least two weird similes a page in the first chapter - and just not all that engaging.