Review: Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyung-Ju, and Ryan Estrada

Imagine living in a world where even the books you read were policed. This was fiction for Kim Hyun Sook, who recounts this is the graphic novel Banned Book Club.

Beautifully drawn images accompanied the storyline in a way that really draws the reader in, and certainly provokes the reader to feel for the characters. The story, in a memoir-esque form, felt smooth, and wasn’t shy when showing the fear of the characters with the military’s censorship during the 1980s. The graphics really brought to life the images necessary to convey a message, as well as truly set the tones and moods that ebbed and flowed within the storyline. I also found the images were rather detailed as well, as if the finer details mattered to the illustrator.

I wasn’t aware that even a single book would have landed you in trouble in South Korea in 1983 until reading this graphic novel. The way it was presented showed how progressive Kim Hyun Sook was in comparison to her parents who just towed the line to avoid getting in trouble. Trying to imagine that happening in my home country (Australia) is hard, but I found this to be utterly important as this could happen to any country in the world- and censorship certainly does happen in some countries in the world still to this day.

I appreciate that the main character, Kim, was just starting out college. I feel that it was appropriate to have the story set at that time of the character’s life as that is typically viewed as the time point where people learn the most about who they are, and what they want to be. This is true of Kim, who is young and bright, as well as full of wonder. I also loved how some of the characters tried to challenge the military regime’s ideals within the book club, encouraging (or as I read it, recruiting) freshman year college students to join and read literature that the government has banned- mostly for being way to progressive or ‘dangerous’ to the government’s ideals. I liked that Kim knocked back her nervousness of the club (after finding out people got arrested for a similar club),in the fight for a broader knowledge of literature. Knowing that the military disliked this, I felt that they had a very Big Brother-like appearance throughout the book, appearing at rather odd moments to try and spring members of the club.

The themes of politics and militia, literature, and friendship are definitely melded together well in this novel, and made for a compelling and somewhat true story come to life, and really drew me in. The story, accompanied with the graphics were definitely something I wasn’t expecting, given I jumped into this book without knowing very much, and honestly, it was such a thrill! I think that this is a book that everyone should read, as history, regardless of whether it happened in the country we live in or not. History is something that is super important to know, and it helps develop our worldviews too. 

If you’re a fan of historical fiction, reading about Big Brother-like governments, or standalone graphic novels, Banned Book Club just might be your next favourite graphic novel! 

Rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for a digital review copy of this title.

This review also features on The Nerd Daily!