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Joanna C. Scott's THE LUCKY GOURD SHOP is a strangely
moving, straightforward tale about a mother of three adopted Korean children who attempts
to return them to their homeland so that they can discover some truths about their past.
However, thanks to the changing face of Southeastern Asia, there is little in Korea that
will give the children the information they are looking for. Although there is endless
loss and sadness in this book, THE LUCKY GOURD SHOP tries to tell the story of four lives
inextricably entangled, regardless of cultural or geographical distance.
The United States fares none too well in this book. It is not seen as the wondrous place
of opportunity and wealth that it usually is. In fact, everyone seems to think that what
it offers is less than what other countries, like Korea, offer these characters. And,
naturally, we have to agree. After all, these characters are born and bred of Korea, and
the images of their pasts and the horrors of their lives before adoption continue to
affect them for years to come.
THE LUCKY GOURD SHOP does introduce us to particularly brave and courageous characters,
elegantly wrought and never to be pitied, regardless of their difficult situations. It is
a story about how no matter how much good you try to do in the world, it can still reward
you with the opposite of what you had hoped to receive. Although the story is filled with
things that may bring tears to your eyes, it has all the elements of a quest, a quest for
knowledge, for redemption, for the truth of one's life. Scott has shaped an old-fashioned
love story involving mother and children that will ring through your heart for many moons
after you close the last page.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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