Reddit reviews Year of Impossible Goodbyes

Had this for assigned reading in 7th grade English: http://www.amazon.com/Year-Impossible-Goodbyes-Sook-Nyul/dp/0440407591/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268065537&sr=8-1

Pretty sure this was only because I went to a magnet school where my class (the entire 7th grade) was seriously like 30% Korean, though. I thought it was a good book regardless, and I've been somewhat interested in Korean culture/history ever since. It actually ends with the outbreak of the Korean War, but it explains everything that lead up to it, with the first half of the book dealing with the Japanese occupation and the subsequent partition of Korea at the end of World War 2, and the second half being about the Soviet occupation and the North's transition to a dictatorship.

I read this two years later http://www.amazon.com/MacArthurs-War-Korea-Undoing-American/dp/1439152942/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268065659&sr=8-2

Fun facts: MacArthur wanted to sow the Yalu River with cobalt to prevent Chinese reinforcements from entering Korea, and he also wanted to nuke Chinese cities and troop positions once China had entered the war.