Young Ehwa begins to bloom into adolescence in volume two of Kim Dong Hwa’s stunning COLOR trilogy, THE COLOR OF WATER, and completes her journey into womanhood as the series closes in THE COLOR OF HEAVEN. But as we saw in THE COLOR OF EARTH, none of it comes easy for Ehwa. There will be terrible heartbreaks, moments of confusion and upheaval that threaten to leave her unable to cope, and her relationship with her widowed mother suddenly begins to grow far more complex. But as painful and baffling as things become for Ehwa, it is absolutely brilliant for the reader. These books simply astonish, and the trilogy will easily land a spot on my year-end top ten list.

The Ehwa we follow in WATER is one beginning to enter puberty. She’s beginning to feel her heart stirring, and because she is beautiful, the boys of her village have certainly begun to take notice. But unlike her friend Bongsoon, she is reluctant to act on her curiosity and get physical with anyone. She is, however, hungry to devour knowledge of what intimacy is really like, and she gains that knowledge from her mother in cryptic fashion and from Bongsoon’s experimentations with a local boy. What emerges is a portrait of teenage sex education that rings true to this day: a whole lot of trial and error and not a lot of facts.

But eventually, as the boys begin to flow through her life, Ehwa does meet one that captures her heart fully. Unfortunately, their love comes at a cost for the boy, as he must leave town to avoid being beaten and injured (caused by another’s raging jealousy). There we open HEAVEN and get a powerful glimpse at why the COLOR books aren’t just a tremendously well-told story; they’re also an artistic feast. The two-page spread that opens the book simply shows Ehwa and her love sitting at a small, nearly featureless depot, waiting for his train to arrive and carry him away from her. By placing them in the center foreground, Dong Hwa captures their awkward intimacy; by showing the depot as desolate and empty, her captures their real fear of not seeing each other again; and by blurring the background, he makes it seem as through a storm is approaching, and many are- the men coming to hurt the boy, the months of agonizing and waiting to be reunited… all of it is there on the page. It’s powerful and wonderful to behold.

If you’d told me before I started that reading 900 pages of a man’s take on his mother’s memoirs on growing up in rural Korea would captivate me as much as the COLOR trilogy did… I’d have accused you of being drunk, insane, or over-medicated. Just goes to show you what happens when you sit down and start reading with an open mind. These books are simply great. I highly recommend all three.

Marc Mason