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The Best Girls

Disorder collection

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About this listen

Inspired by a true event, this powerful short story from the author of National Book Award finalist Pachinko explores the meaning of patriarchy and the cost of female silence through the eyes of a dutiful young girl.

An excellent student from a poor, traditional family in Seoul, the narrator has absorbed the same message her whole life: Only a boy can provide the family with dignity and wealth. Not her. Not her three sisters. Receiving approval only for uncomplaining sacrifice, she has resolved to take on her family’s troubles. She is a good girl. And she knows what good girls must do.

The Best Girls is part of Disorder, a collection of six short stories of living nightmares, chilling visions, and uncanny imagination that explore a world losing its balance in terrifying ways. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single disorienting sitting.

©2019 Min Jin Lee (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Coming of Age Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological United States World Literature Short Story Korean Culture

Critic reviews

“Listeners will be shattered by this short gut punch of an audiobook, narrated with tender precision by Greta Jung.... Jung’s deliberate tone, warming as the girl’s personality unfolds, perfectly matches Lee’s spare prose and heightens the sense of isolate that sets the girl apart.” --AudioFile
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It wasn't a bad story per se, but there wasn't any real appeal aside from the brevity of it. I couldn't see the end coming, but the whole story left a bitter taste anyway with the way it captured a tradition that favours boys.
Sometimes you tell yourself that you know these things as abstract concepts, but then you read something like this and remember that it's still a thing and a lot of people think it's right, too.

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The only way this poor family in Seoul can gain any sort of dignity, is through a son. And what do they get? One, two, three daughters. What a curse. Fortunately, their fourth child is a boy, and it becomes painfully clear to the girls how they will never be as valued as their brother. What a sad, little story this was.

A sad, little story

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