Reader Score
68%
68% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 9 reviews on
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Esquire, Bustle, BBC, New York Post, InStyle
Kyuri is an achingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a Seoul "room salon," an exclusive underground bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake threatens her livelihood.
Kyuri's roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the heir to one of the country's biggest conglomerates.
Down the hall in their building lives Ara, a hairstylist whose two preoccupations sustain her: an obsession with a boy-band pop star, and a best friend who is saving up for the extreme plastic surgery that she hopes will change her life.
And Wonna, one floor below, is a newlywed trying to have a baby that she and her husband have no idea how they can afford to raise in Korea's brutal economy.
Together, their stories tell a gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal, in which their tentative friendships may turn out to be the thing that ultimately saves them.
"This novel is such a page-turner. It reads like a TV series, richly detailed and visually evocative."
Hannah Bae is a freelance writer.
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, @Frances_H_Cha! Everyone, get your hands on Frances’s riveting, transporting ✨debut novel,✨ IF I HAD YOUR FACE! https://bookshop.org/books/if-i-had-your-face/9780593129463 (Clever photo idea cribbed from @violethkim. Share your version if you have this book!) https://t.co/VMXel6wXNP
NYT bestselling author of THE ATLAS SIX + other SFF, she/her | out now: MASTERS OF DEATH from @torbooks. rep’d by @AmeliaLAppel. I am also @afarolfollmuth
@astridatlas my answer changes fairly often but today it’s The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
"[Cha] has a biting wit and an eye for absurd glitz. . . . Ultimately, female friendship bolsters precarious fortunes in this gripping novel--compelling readers to consider what remains after beauty fades."--O: The Oprah Magazine
"An enthralling tale about the weight of old traumas, economic disparity and the restoring power of friendship . . . [A] powerful debut."--People
"If I Had Your Face isn't just a good book--it's a book we need, badly. . . . The vivid characters at the novel's core make for a compelling read, and in a time of such global division, hopefully a uniting one. . . . If you read one book this month, make it If I Had Your Face."--InStyle
"[A] powerful and provocative rendering of contemporary South Korean society, one that might be considered bleak if not for the women themselves, who occasionally surprise with their compassion and bravery. At heart, If I Had Your Face is a novel about female strength, spirit, resilience--and the solace that friendship can sometimes provide."--The Washington Post
"Magnificent . . . With unblinking focus, [Cha] confronts some of the darkest consequences of contemporary gender inequity."--Booklist (starred review)
"Searing . . . Essential reading in what Jia Tolentino memorably called the age of Instagram face."--Vogue (UK)
"Make way for Frances Cha, an entrancing new voice who guides us into the complexities and contradictions of modern-day Seoul, a dissonant, neon world that is ripped open to bare the same universal and human challenges that face us all. I devoured this novel in a single sitting."--Janice Y. K. Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Teacher
"Few American novelists know Seoul the way Frances Cha does and in her intimate, panoramic debut, she brings that dazzling city to life. There are voices here you haven't heard before. . . . An enthralling read from the very first page."--Ed Park, author of Personal Days
"Troubling, kaleidoscopic, and hugely enjoyable."--Nell Zink, author of Mislaid