The Surrendered

The point of view in this novel is primarily that of June, the oldest of a brood of orphaned Korean children. At the Korean orphanage where she lands, she meets Jim Brennan, an American G.I., and Sylvie Tanner, a beautiful missionary; a complicated bond forms among them. June is a strong female character whose journey the listener shares, so the use of a male narrator for this title is surprising. James Yaegashi's strong American accent is distracting in the scenes set during the Korean War. However, in the many scenes with nameless characters, the narrative is strengthened by Yaegashi's steady pace and his evocations of emotion. The personal story of June and her younger siblings' determination to stay alive is told against the backdrop of a war that wrenched a country, and a generation, apart. M.R. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 26, 2009
Lee's masterful fourth novel (after Aloft
) bursts with drama and human anguish as it documents the ravages and indelible effects of war. June Han is a starving 11-year-old refugee fleeing military combat during the Korean War when she is separated from her seven-year-old twin siblings. Eventually brought to an orphanage near Seoul by American soldier Hector Brennan, who is still reeling from his father's death, June slowly recovers from her nightmarish experiences thanks to the loving attention of Sylvie Tanner, the wife of the orphanage's minister. But Sylvie is irretrievably scarred as well, having witnessed her parents' murder by Japanese soldiers in 1934 Manchuria. These traumas reverberate throughout the characters' lives, determining the destructive relationship that arises between June, Hector and Sylvie as the plot rushes forward and back in time, encompassing graphic scenes of suffering, carnage and emotional wreckage. Powerful, deeply felt, compulsively readable and imbued with moral gravity, the novel does not peter out into easy redemption. It's a harrowing tale: bleak, haunting, often heartbreaking—and not to be missed.