'Takes on the friction between family bonds, cultural expectations, and personal desires in a way that feels both urgent and intensely real . . . For me the true heart of the book was Min, and his search for a sense of belonging that neither America nor Korea is quite able offer him. His story is truly unforgettable' Abi Dare, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

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Yu-jin is gifted.
Yu-jin is loved.
Yu-jin is flourishing.

Yu-jin is dead.

When the Seoul police inform Min that his girlfriend Yu-jin has taken her own life, he’s sure it can’t be true. She was successful, happy, just on the cusp of graduating and claiming the future she’d always dreamed of.

After growing up in California, where he always felt ‘too Korean’ to fit in, Min has never felt quite the same certainty as Yu-jin about his life’s path. Unable to accept that she could have done this, Min throws himself into finding out what really happened to her.

But the more Min discovers, the more lost he feels. With a controlling and powerful government official father, and a fraught friendship with her alluring and destructive roommate So-ra, Yu-jin’s life was much more complex than she chose to reveal to Min. And the more he learns about her, the more he begins to doubt he ever really knew her at all.

For fans of Celeste Ng, this is a profoundly moving and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties that bind families together – or break them apart.