A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICKINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERHIGHLY ANTICIPATED BY FORTUNE ⋅ POPSUGAR ⋅ PUREWOW ⋅ THE MILLIONS ⋅ LITHUB ⋅ VULTURE ⋅ BUSTLE ⋅ GMA.COM ⋅ BOOKRIOT ⋅ BOOKISH“Painful, joyous… A story that cries out to be told.” —Los Angeles Times“Kim is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel“Suspenseful and deeply … is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
“Suspenseful and deeply felt.” —Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists
A profoundly moving and unconventional mother-daughter saga, The Last Story of Mina Lee illustrates the devastating realities of being an immigrant in America.
Margot Lee’s mother, Mina, isn’t returning her calls. It’s a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother’s life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother.
Interwoven with Margot’s present-day search is Mina’s story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she’s barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.
Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong.
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A suspenseful and unflinching novel, The Last Story of Mina Lee had me glued to the page until its surprising and poignant end.
I’m fortunate to be part of The Last Story Of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim book tour courtesy of BookClubbish and Park Row. Thank you for a gifted copy! I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
REVIEW
I am not Korean. I am not an immigrant. Did I, regardless of this, identify with The Last Story Of Mina Lee? Yes, I absolutely did! This story is so universally connected to everyone. On almost every page, I’ve written notes and underlined snippets and entire passages that speak to my heart and soul.
Mina and Margot are familiar to me. I don’t speak often to my mother, and that is my choice. She is harsh, and I am done with that. Margot realizes, after Mina’s death, that she knew little about her mother and regrets so much of their history. Isn’t this true more often than not when you lose someone? You learn about so many things that escaped you. This story is heavy with regret and sorrow and wishing to change the past. A universal feeling.
Nancy Jooyoun Kim paints a vivid picture of LA Koreatown and a Korean immigrant’s way of living, of surviving. I have not experienced any of these things, and this intimate portrayal helps me envision Mina and Margot. I love the flow of the language, almost lyrical, and beautiful. I connected emotionally to this story-its themes about relationships, friendships, heritage, appreciation for the now-and I know I will think about it for a long time. I cannot recommend this book enough. It is just fantastic in every way!
This novel made me call my mom and give her a virtual hug. As a daughter of an immigrant, and someone who grew up in Koreatown, Los Angeles in the late ‘80’s, I resonated with this book – the urban location, the people, the food brought back all kinds of memories for me. The neighborhood is as good as stepping into Seoul for its sights, smell and sounds. Through the points of view by mother (Mina) and daughter (Margot), and two distinct timelines and juxtaposition, we discover what tore them apart and what will bind them together.
I loved the writing, the pacing, the murder mystery component, and the great representation of the immigrant Korean-American experience. Kim did not hold back and told about the hardships, difficulties and struggles. This is truly an amazing and unforgaettavle debut by Nancy Jooyoun Kim.
Don’t miss this one!
This is a great mother-daughter story. Also a great immigrant raising a daughter born and raised in America. I thought Mina’s (mom’s) life was very sad and depressing.
I really enjoyed this book! I would definitely recommend this book. I loved all the characters and her finding about her family. Enjoyable.
I loved this story. Nancy Jooyoun Kim beautifully weaves the lives of mother and daughter across generations and cultures. Great combination of family, love, and mystery on many levels.
I have no idea what it is like to be an immigrant or an immigrant’s child, but I really feel like that experience was brought to life for me in The Last Story of Mina Lee which is Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut novel. And oh the FOOD! This book made a hungry girl even hungrier with all the descriptions of food the characters were eating, so maybe eat before reading this! I have a BOTM copy but decided to do the audio and this is one of the only times I will say I do NOT recommend that route. The narrator is Greta Jung, and I found her narration to be very stilted and distracting. I don’t know if she is just doing it because of the type of book it is, but Margot is said to be a very fluid speaker of English and Jung’s narration did not convey that at all.
I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding Mina’s death and that Margot goes sleuthing (with her friend Miguel’s help) to figure out what really happened. What she found completely surprised me, and I think the ending will be shocking for a lot of people. The biggest theme though, is that of the mother/daughter relationship. I really appreciated the way the author shows the reader the extent of Mina and Margot’s bond, and how little Margot really knew and appreciated about her mother. The book switches between Margot in present day and Mina’s past which is something I loved. I would have liked even more of Mina’s backstory, but I appreciated what I got, and it was a great lead-in to Margot’s current day.
I thought The Last Story of Mina Lee was sad but also empowering, and I liked that it speaks to what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. I can’t imagine what it’s like, but I feel like I got a glimpse of it in this novel. Overall I really liked this debut, and I will be looking forward to Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s next book.
Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish is the story of three generations of women with secrets that are keeping them apart. This was a five star read for me AND a debut novel! I can’t wait to read Tori Whitaker’s next book.
Wonderful story that was deep and about family. I was drawn in by the story first off and loved it. It is one of those powerful stories that once you start reading it you can’t put it down. The lovely debut did a great job weaving two stories with two powerful characters.
This is the story of Margot and her mother, Mina. Margot has not seen her mother in almost a year, and has decided to go and visit her. She has been calling her mom to let her know she is coming, but has not gotten an answer. When Margot shows up at her mother’s apartment, she discovered that she had died. The death seems like an accident, but Margot is not so sure.
The book goes back and forth between Margot trying to solve the mystery of her mother’s death, and dealing with her past – and Mina’s story. How she came to be in Los Angeles from Korea – and what she was escaping from. Margot pieces together her mother’s history and gets to the bottom of the mystery of her death and struggles to learn who her mother really was.
This book was fine. It wasn’t especially well written and I really didn’t like the end. The book fell apart in the end for me. The plot was a bit all over the place. I really cannot recommend it.
Extremely slow! Ending was anti-climatic.
Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut carefully illuminates the two sides of the silence between a Korean immigrant mother and her Korean American daughter, a silence only too familiar to many of us—and emerges with a stunningly powerful and original novel about social class, immigration and family. Kim is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.
Nancy Jooyoun Kim writes with brilliant exactitude about the anxious topographies of being a mother and a daughter, and the choices that lead to migration. The Last Story of Mina Lee is a confident and gripping account of where families bury secrets and what happens when you dig.
In her stunning debut, Nancy Jooyoun Kim weaves together two poignant story lines: Mina Lee, an immigrant flees tragedy in Korea for a new start in Southern California. When she mysteriously dies, her American-born daughter, Margot, seeks out the truth of what happened. Gripping and gritty, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a story of their yearning, their struggle, and the enduring mystery of family. Unforgettable.
The Last Story of Mina Lee is a fierce, gripping call to love and memory. Nancy Jooyoun Kim has written a beautiful debut novel that is unafraid to delve into the scary, deeply vulnerable places of our hearts. It’s a riveting dance between mother and daughter, moving fluidly back and forth through time, documenting the quiet traumas that can divide generations. Tremendously readable, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a real page-turner and Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a knockout.
Suspenseful and deeply felt, The Last Story of Mina Lee begins when Margot Lee discovers her mother’s death before reeling back in time to explore the secrets that divided Mina and Margot — as well as those that bound them together. Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut artfully explores a diverse range of immigrant experiences, the meaning of family and home, and the nature of language — how it can be an ocean that divides, or a bridge that connects. In the process, The Last Story of Mina Lee raises questions about the reality of the American dream and illuminates stories that often go untold, in life as well as fiction.
The Last Story of Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a story about a mother and daughter and the choices that are made that sometimes is not known by the other. Told in dual point of views from Mina, the mother and Margot, the daughter. Their relationship was not the best, as Margot lived the American life while Mina was an immigrant with a history she hid. Margot at times seemed embarrassed of her mother. Then she finds her mother has passed away and we begin to see Mina’s story. We learn about the culture and see family dynamics in a story that was sprinkled with mystery. I am looking forward to reading more from this author.
Happy reading!
I felt this story started a little slow but then I understood that we really had two stories. One is a story of Mina Lee’s daughter and we learn a bit about her as she searches for some truths that she never knew. The second story is about Mina Lee herself and how she rebuilt herself when she came from Korea to the United States after some tragedies hit. I received a copy of this book from Harlequin Trade Publishing for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.
Margot hasn’t heard from her Mom Mina in over 2 weeks. She is driving from Seattle to LA and has been trying to let her mom know she is coming for a visit. When Margot goes into her childhood home, she finds Mina dead. As Margot tries to piece together what happened to her mother, we learn about Mina’s life. I loved Mina’s courage coming to America from Korea and not speaking English. I enjoyed Mina’s chapters more than Margot’s as I found Margot being ashamed of what her mother could give her all her life very selfish. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.
The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim is an emotional and moving tale that illustrates the realities and experiences of being an immigrant in America. This journey is told by the alternating voices of a Korean mother, during her first year in Los Angeles and by her daughter in present day.
Margot Lee cannot figure out why her mother, Mina Lee, is not returning her calls. At least until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA and finds that her mother has died; possibly suspiciously. This event has Margot digging through her single mother’s past as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she really knew about her mother. Entwined with Margot’s search is the telling of Mina’s story of her first year in the US as she travels through the promises and perils of the American myth of reinventing oneself. Barely supporting herself, stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, Mina unexpectedly finds love with another Korean worker. Events occurring at the store accidently puts into motion events that have consequences for years to come and leading up to the truth of what actually happened to cause her death. After years of struggling to understand each other, Margot is finally getting the opportunity to truly learn who her mother really is and possibly better understand her.
Ms. Kim wrote an emotional and powerful tale in her debut novel that should not be missed. She provided a tale exploring identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong. I definitely recommend The Last Story of Mina Lee.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.