- Overview
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This book is a piece of problem-focused fiction that is essential for today's young adults. The book talks about the past and present of our society as well as the future that we cannot avoid any longer.
- Book Intro
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A Recipe for a Broken Family, the grand prize winner of the 1st Munhakdongne Young Adult Literary Award, is a piece of problem-focused fiction with themes surrounding the identities of drifting adolescents, dysfunctional families, and inequality between classes. Today, adolescents are living in a world where the symbolic father, with whom they should identify, has disappeared due to unemployment and early retirement. They have no choice but to lead a drifting, problematic life without establishing a stable identity through a symbolic father. Therefore, as stated by judge Kim Jinkyeong, "The current state of young adult literature so far is that it can focus on problems but does not". This is where problem-focused young adult literature is desperately needed. As a piece of problem-focused fiction breaking a new ground for young adult literature beyond the old matrix regarding young adult and school education, A Recipe for a Broken Family is the sarcastic story of a dysfunctional family at a crisis point that is unfolding in a voluble way. Playing dress-up, which serves as a supplementary axis of the story, implies the drifting identities of certain youth. Through different costumes worn by various characters, the characters deliver their desperate desires to live as other beings instead of themselves. The struggle of Yeoul, the main character, who makes consistent efforts to become the protagonist of her own life amid competition for college entrance and the crisis of school education, can be clearly seen. In the end, Yeoul realizes that the fantasy of a playing dress-up cannot be expanded into reality and that being the main character in her life as a true version of herself is more wonderful than any other being in a fantasy world.
- About the Author
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Son Hyunjoo
Son Hyunjoo was born in Seoul. Son studied history at college and mass communication at graduate school. She made her literary debut in 2008 by winning the annual spring literary contest hosted by Kookje Daily News for her short story Mom's Part Time Job and received the New Writer's Award for Your Man in 2009. The following year, Son won the Pyeongsari Literary Grand Award and the 1st Munhakdongne Adolescent Literary Award.
- Award
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Munhakdongne, 2010, Grand Prize at the Munhakdongne Adolescent Literary Award
- Selection
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National Library for Children & Young Adults, 2011, Recommended Book by librarians
Ansan Central Library, 2011, One Library One Book Project selected book