kelly_e's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Title: What We Kept to Ourselves
Author: Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.50
Pub Date: October 10, 2023
I received a complimentary eARC from Simon & Schuster Canada via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted #Ad
T H R E E • W O R D S
Intriguing • Digestible • Messy
📖 S Y N O P S I S
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard. The tragedy seems random until they learn that the dead man was carrying a letter to Sunny, sparking a desperate investigation into the stranger’s history and possible connections to her—only to reveal that someone has been watching them.
1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof and often-absent husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation are broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother but their very lives at risk.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I was initially drawn to What We Kept to Ourselves based on the dual timeline synopsis , so when the publisher reached out to see if I wanted an advanced copy, I agreed. I hadn't realized it was written by the author of The Last Story of Mina Lee until I had finished.
Nancy Jooyoun Kim delivers a complicated, multilayered family saga told in dual timelines and from multiple perspectives. The cast of characters were great, and I really couldn't figure out whether to love them or hate them. Each was bitter, troubled, and flawed in their own way, and I was drawn into their messy lives.
Behind the mystery of the dead man in the backyard and Sunny's disappearance, there is a narrative exploring the isolation of immigration, the American dream, the consequences of family secrets, and the search for belonging and identity. While I appreciated learning more about certain things, I definitely think it bogged now the main narrative at times. For this reason, the writing wasn't smooth, and made for a slow unravel.
What We Kept to Ourselves was a solid story, yet it lacked a bit when it comes to the execution. It quite possible it tried to do too much with one story. I have a feeling this will be a polarizing book.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of the family saga
• bookclubs
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Death was so much easier to explain. Death was the period at the end of a sentence. A disappearance was a question mark. You'd always be left waiting for a response."
"His kids were soft, hasn't gone through war like he has at thirteen, hadn't lost their family and home, too. They didn't know what it was like to climb over dead people, bodies bloated and rotten, or to steal from the dead because you never knew when you could get another pair of shoes. They never has to wear another man's socks, with another man's blood on them. They didn't know what that was like, that smell, all those bodies, the shit and urine, those maggots and flies. These American kids would never get it."
"It was so much easier to be angry at, to blame people we didn't know, wasn't it? Because being angry at people whom we knew intimately was like being angry at ourselves. We had some great stake in it."
"And maybe home was not the place where you thought I'm here. It was the place where you felt I've returned."
Author: Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.50
Pub Date: October 10, 2023
I received a complimentary eARC from Simon & Schuster Canada via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted #Ad
T H R E E • W O R D S
Intriguing • Digestible • Messy
📖 S Y N O P S I S
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard. The tragedy seems random until they learn that the dead man was carrying a letter to Sunny, sparking a desperate investigation into the stranger’s history and possible connections to her—only to reveal that someone has been watching them.
1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof and often-absent husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation are broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother but their very lives at risk.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I was initially drawn to What We Kept to Ourselves based on the dual timeline synopsis , so when the publisher reached out to see if I wanted an advanced copy, I agreed. I hadn't realized it was written by the author of The Last Story of Mina Lee until I had finished.
Nancy Jooyoun Kim delivers a complicated, multilayered family saga told in dual timelines and from multiple perspectives. The cast of characters were great, and I really couldn't figure out whether to love them or hate them. Each was bitter, troubled, and flawed in their own way, and I was drawn into their messy lives.
Behind the mystery of the dead man in the backyard and Sunny's disappearance, there is a narrative exploring the isolation of immigration, the American dream, the consequences of family secrets, and the search for belonging and identity. While I appreciated learning more about certain things, I definitely think it bogged now the main narrative at times. For this reason, the writing wasn't smooth, and made for a slow unravel.
What We Kept to Ourselves was a solid story, yet it lacked a bit when it comes to the execution. It quite possible it tried to do too much with one story. I have a feeling this will be a polarizing book.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of the family saga
• bookclubs
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Death was so much easier to explain. Death was the period at the end of a sentence. A disappearance was a question mark. You'd always be left waiting for a response."
"His kids were soft, hasn't gone through war like he has at thirteen, hadn't lost their family and home, too. They didn't know what it was like to climb over dead people, bodies bloated and rotten, or to steal from the dead because you never knew when you could get another pair of shoes. They never has to wear another man's socks, with another man's blood on them. They didn't know what that was like, that smell, all those bodies, the shit and urine, those maggots and flies. These American kids would never get it."
"It was so much easier to be angry at, to blame people we didn't know, wasn't it? Because being angry at people whom we knew intimately was like being angry at ourselves. We had some great stake in it."
"And maybe home was not the place where you thought I'm here. It was the place where you felt I've returned."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Mental illness, Abortion, and War
Minor: Classism, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
PTSD2treads's review against another edition
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
I wanted this story to be more propulsive, more focused on what happened to RJ and his relationship to Sunny. I didn't find the supporting cast as interesting and finished this book just to find out what RJ knew, where Sunny went, and foun the ultimate end just OK.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Abandonment, War, Blood, and Death
theoceanrose's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Death, and Death of parent
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Blood
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