Throughout, I was drawn into the lives of the characters. Frances Cha is a former travel and culture reporter for CNN in Seoul, and she has woven her understanding of the country’s difficulties into this book. Its birth rate is the lowest in the developed world and female suicide is the highest when compared to other OECD countries. South Korea does indeed boast the highest number of cosmetic procedures per capita worldwide. I therefore found myself regularly looking on the internet to see if Frances Cha’s story is complete fiction or based on truth. I have read several books about North Korea but know very little about its southern counterpart. It is also a life where status is coveted, and guarded, making it ‘who you know’, rather than what you know.

It is a life where being called an orphan is a derogatory term, rather than something that demands sympathy. It is a life where a good marriage to someone in a prestigious company is the primary aim even if that involves turning a blind eye to their infidelity and regular visits to the ‘room salons’ disguised as shops.

Written from the perspective of four women, Kyuri, Miho, Wonna and Ara, along with their friend Sujin, ‘If I had your face,’ depicts the impact of a culture focussed on beauty, money and status. To order a copy go to Cha’s ‘If I had your face’ is a beautifully written novel, that left me suffering book grief when it finished. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha is published by Viking (£12.99). A compelling, icily cool exposé of the unceasing quest for self-advancement when the economic odds are stacked against you. But her writing always crackles: it’s gripping as well as grisly, and flashes of real friendship and solidarity amid Seoul’s neon glare are more touching for being an enormous relief. It occasionally feels like Cha lines up the relentless, contradictory pressures women face in South Korea in order to inflict them one by one. Downstairs, mother-to-be Wonna, whose choice of husband was entirely based on his mother being dead (a stinging insight into traditionally toxic mother/daughter-in-law relationships), panics about losing her baby and her job. She shares an apartment with Miho, an artist who, after winning a scholarship to the US, became embroiled with a hyper-wealthy crowd Cha’s descriptions of their lifestyles dazzle, although it’s no shock that such grotesque riches don’t result in kind behaviour.Īcross the hallway is Ara, a mute hairdresser who tries to escape her daily grind – along with the trauma of an assault and her parents’ fixation with marriage – by obsessing over a K-pop star.

In reality, Kyuri is tied in by debt, and feels her primped body breaking down thanks to the heavy nightly drinking required. The “painfully plastic” Kyuri is a room salon girl: a seemingly well-paid opportunity only open to the “prettiest 10%”, where clients treat their favourite escorts to designer bags.

If i had your face book review