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Summary: Some Questions
Review: If Elizabeth skiped 2 grades, she wouuld have graduated from high school at 15, yet she married that monster "D" "right after graduation" and claimed she was 17- I find that very interesting. I also found it unbelievable that "nobody" said she was beautiful on her wedding day. Surely there were one or two decent people at the church. The book was generaly good, however, I can't get pass a nagging feeling she made some of the stuff up in order to make her life seem more tragic. Also, I wonder if she used the name "Kim" while growing up. I would love to see pictures of her child, Leigh, the adoptive parents and that monster "D".
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Summary: A poignant book about inter-cultural adoption
Review: Elizabeth Kim's wrenching and poetic story about the death of her Korean mother and her adoption into a fundamentalist American family is an important part of the whole picture of inter-cultural Asian-American adoption currently emerging in several books. Another book on the topic, which fills in a different part of the picture, is Karin Evans' Lost Daughters of China, which is also beautifully written. I think anyone interested in Ms. Kim's book would be interested in this book as well.
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Summary: A Tribute to Mothers
Review: Elizabeth Kim's book is really a tribute to motherhood. The memory of her mother and her mother's love for her are what sustain her through her childhood and early adulthood. Her own motherhood is what sustains her, rescues her, and saves her life over and over again as she creates her own adulthood. I loved this book. Every word is perfectly chosen. Every scene is deeply etched into my memory. I read it two weeks ago, and still think about this extraordinary woman every day. And I think about her mother, too. And mine. I thank Elizabeth Kim for writing such a beautiful tribute to the unique and magnificent power of motherhood.
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Summary: Harrowing, a must for all asian americans and "hapas"
Review: I started this book at 10:30pm thinking I would read a chapter before going to bed, and ended up finishing it at 3:30am. A testiment to the cruelty and inhumanity in the world, but also to the human will to survive, overcome and carve out love in one's life.
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Summary: Great reading
Review: Just when you think you have it bad. Pick up this book and count your blessings. It us unbelievable that someone has the will to carry on with life after what this lady has gone through. The book is graphic and will demand mind building images. Some parts of the story will enact rage, some will jerk tears. This is a great book to read when you think life has delt you a bad card.
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Summary: Ten Thousand Sorrows
Review: This is a beautiful book! Elizabeth Kim is an exceptional person. She suffers through so many trials in her life and still seems to be a well adjusted person at the end. The last page of this book is stunning in its simplicity and power. I highly recommend this book for adoptive parents. It affords the rare opportunity to get inside the mind of an adopted child and understand how the changes they must endure affect them. I just wanted to find Elizabeth the child, give her a hug and tell her that there are good people in the world and people who could love and appreciate her. In the end she knows that. Just a great book.
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Summary: Powerful and Engaging: Human Story
Review: This is a superb and excellent book that I enjoyed immensely because of the author's willingness to completely share her very personal story. Hers is one important story of the 200,000 children of Korean descent who were adopted overseas. Elizabeth¡¯s dual voices show: the professional journalist voice in the clarity and depth of her narrative and the poet¡¯s voice that transforms her work into one that shows the reflecting pool of her life in its many subtleties and textures. It is the storm of chance that creates and propels Elizabeth¡¯s life. Through her narrative, we can imagine Elizabeth as a child born into difficult circumstances (a mixed race child in Korea), adopted by American parents who are exceptionally difficult, and her difficult and torturous adulthood. After reading the book, I imagined Elizabeth¡¯s story as one of a little girl rowing in a small dinghy caught in a storm of biblical proportions: lightening flashing, sea sick high waves, driving sheets of rain, and violent and shrieking winds. We root for her as she rows forward through the storm of life; we cringe with fear on her behalf on the battering that she takes from the life waves; and we applaud her search for the calm seas and the shores of sanity. The warm glow from her birth mother¡¯s spirit is the lodestar that guides Elizabeth, and this spirit provides us hope that perhaps there is a whisper of chance that Elizabeth will arrive on the shores of sanity and love. As I read the book, I feared for Elizabeth, the child and the adult, and hoped that her experiences in her tortuous life have not embittered her, that her scars both physical and emotional have healed. Perhaps that is too much, for surely her experiences would have left most of us bitter, angry, and emotionally distant. Perhaps the great emotional wounds that she has suffered neither the time of healing or even the healing herbs of the Centaur would provide the necessary healing properties. And against all hope, against all logic, against all reason, we find out if Elizabeth triumphs and provides us, the reader, that most important and wonderful graces that life provides us: hope. With all my being and soul, I believe that Elizabeth¡¯s birth mother¡¯s spirit would be both happy and proud of her achievements in life and this wondrous book. Peter K. Kwak
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Summary: A very moving story about courage and triumph over adversity
Review: I spent the better part of yesterday evening reading the book cover to cover. This story is such a moving drama..all of it true. Kim writes with such eloquence...she is both tender and objective, which is remarkable for a person who has faced so much struggle in her short lifetime. I gave it 4 stars as I felt that the story was a bit disjointed (especially toward the end). Otherwise, I highly recommend it but be prepared with a hankie as the tears will surely flow!
Rating: 
Summary: Ten Thousand Sorrows
Review: I first read her story in an excerpt from the magazine "O". Couldn't believe what this young girl lived through. I couldn't wait to get the book and read it. I really enjoyed the book up until she fled from her abusive husband then the book seemed to get wordy and mythical. I don't doubt her life it just seemed to go on and on. It seemed to me that she was just looking for words to fill the pages towards the end.
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Summary: Readers Remarks are Numbing
Review: I found myself shaking my head in wonder and disgust as I read some of the reviewer remarks for this book. Everone's memories are just that - Memories. I can't belive how some have shredded this strong woman's memories. Seems to me if all you can focus on are the fact's, then you are missing the bigger picture - feelings. I was 7 years old and came from the renowend Holt Adoption Agency. Here are some of my memories as an adopted Korean war orphan of mixed race: kids laughing at me from the outside of the chain-link fence at the orphanage I lived; kids laughing at me on the playground at recess time in grade school; knowing that Omma left me at an orphanage; adoption records reflecting father unknown and no siblings but remembering the day my baby brother was born; that my father had blue eyes; going to the public baths with my Omma; living in a box in the streets; being terrified of the night well into adulthood; getting in line everytime a group of kids were sent to families; being told many times "it's not your turn;" hearing airplanes in the night; waking on the plane on the way to America and knowing it was my birthday; dropping my hair barrett on the tarmac thinking it was going to get broken when run over by a plane; having scars on my body not knowing how they got there; getting off the airplane; watching a child squat and pee in the grass; staring at an ice cream cone in my hand wondering what it was; being in school one month after arriving; told I couldn't speak English but remembering I understood it anyway; losing my new family to the newest adoptee in my family; she was the pretty one - I was the difficult one; beatings because my mother couldn't cope; what did they expect at age 55? But they were good Christian folks so what does it matter that they don't know anything about cross-cultural children. Hating my new sister because she wasn't a boy and she took my new family away. Trying to find love anywhere I could, even if it hurt. Holding my first born son in my arms feeling unconditional love for the very first time in my memory. Learning to find worth and loving myself. The only Korean words I remember are Omma and Aboji (?) momma and papa. There are more memories - are they accurate? I don't know. Did they shape me? Certainly - they've been a part of me long as I remember. I forgive my adoptive parents. They did the best they could. They're both gone now, and I am saddened that we never bonded in all these years. I got tired of trying to win their love or anyone elses. I never had trouble loving others. It was loving myself that was so difficult, but I'm learning. However the story is told - my deep, deep respect to Ms. Kim. You said it so very well. Cross-cultural adoption? I love the United States, it's my home. But I never thought my life in Korea was bad. That's were Omma is, my baby brother, memories of my father (whoever he is); knowing my Omma loved me. You know she was pregnant with me during the war and cared for me throughtout that time. It must have been very hard. I've always believed she left me at the orphanage to give me a better life. A childhood fantasy to overcome abandonment? I don't know. But these are my memories. Are they fact? I don't know that either - but they sure seem real to me. Practice loving-kindness .. it soothes the soul and eases the pain in this crazy life we lead.
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