Nancy Jooyoun Kim

A Family at Last

Mina and her daughter, Margot only have each other. Each character tries to communicate in their own way, so they never really connect. There is truly a ' failure to communicate '. After Mina' s death Margot finally gets to know her mother, ultimately understanding her mother's sorrow. I enjoyed the author's description of the food - I'd love to try some of the dishes. The author's depiction of the mother - day relationship in this book rang true. I loved the ending although it brought tears to my eyes.… (altro)

fiction - a homeless Black veteran is found dead in the back yard of a Korean-American family whose wife/mother disappeared almost one year before in Los Angeles (1977-1999).

I really liked this one, with its varied characters each with their own battles and a surprisingly satisfying ending. There were a lot of parallels to The Last Story of Mina Lee (loss of a mother and so many secrets about her life left behind, with the perspective of a Korean-American immigrant being divided between family left behind in the war and its aftermath and conflicting feelings about staying in the US), but this latest added the potential of solidarity with Black Lives (even while overshadowed by the riots following the Rodney King verdict) and made for a very compelling story. The librarian bits are maybe not 100% accurate, as I'm fairly sure there would have been more privacy protections even in those days, but I'm more than willing to overlook in service to a good story.… (altro)

Mystery and family drama story.

Sunny and John Kim left Korea for America where their two children, Ann, and Ronald, were born. One day, Sunny unexpectedly disappeared. Her body was never found. A year after that incident, a dead man was found in Kim's backyard carrying a letter addressed to Sunny. His name was Ronald Jones. The same name as their son's. A few days later, Ronald's daughter, Rhonda, came to look for answers of her father's death. Ronald Jones was a war veteran, then he worked at the police station as a janitor, but later ended up homeless. The investigation revealed secrets and mystery behind both incidents.

The story is told in two timelines. The first timeline was told in perspective of Sunny and her struggles to live as an immigrant in America. She missed her family and couldn't find happiness in a new place. Until one day when she met Ronald. In this section, author nicely presented daily life of the immigrants in a new country and the beginning of marital problems.

The second timeline started when Ronald's body was found in the yard. It covered the investigation of Ronald's death and tied it to Sunny's disappearance. I didn't expect this book to be a mystery and I'm glad that author included chilling actions into this story.

This is the story of survival in a foreign country. It's a story of a family who lost their bond due to secrets and lack of communication. It was an interesting story that most readers will enjoy.… (altro)

What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a recommended domestic drama about a family searching for answers about the disappearance of their mother.
In 1999 the Kim family, father John (61), and grown children Anastasia (Ana) and Ronald, are still struggling after their wife/mother (Sunny/Sunhee) vanished the previous year. When John finds a body in their backyard with a letter addressed to Sunny they are questioning her connection to the strange man.
In 1977 Sunny is married, pregnant, and moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her husband. Sunny has had a hard time adjusting and John is often gone, so she welcomed an unexpected connection at the bus stop with a good Samaritan. The two form a relationship and unknown to John, their son is named after him.

While the plot may pull readers in at the start, the writing is not as smooth and polished as one would expect. The mystery is compelling and will hook readers in, so it would have behooved Kim to concentrate on it. The twists will keep our attention and we will want to know what happens next, so keep the action moving. In spite of the potential, this is a very slow moving novel that can be repetitive, unwieldy, and dogmatic. Yet again I need to caution an author to keep their personal political/social views to themselves as it diminishes a novel. Show us in the plot and dialogue, don't repeatedly tell and lecture us.

As an uneven novel, this is recommended because of the potential and character development, but it could have been so much more.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria via Edelweiss.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/10/what-we-kept-to-ourselves.html… (altro)