The premise of the novel caught my attention but the writing style and execution didn't work for me. Dual time lines and very slow pacing. The story needed to be a bit more dynamic to move the plot along.

Too much going on. There are multiple story lines and none are fleshed out well. Every issue from the Korean War to the present makes its way into this novel which is mostly set in the 90's. The parents are say and do things that seem to be wholly out of character. And the end? Ugh. This was a disappointment.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I have loved all of Kim's past novels but I just couldn't get into this story. It was so sad and I felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions.

A vivid and original story about a family whose mother is missing. A true page turner that you don’t want to miss
Many thanks to Atria and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am struggling with everything about this book - reading it, how to rate it. Did I like it? Did I not like it? Even now, 6 weeks later, I still don't know what to think of it. Overall, I'm just apathetic. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. It was just 400+ pages of story that I read but didn't and won't stick with me. I felt nothing for the characters. The writing was simply words. I skimmed a number of sections of the book because I simply couldn't be bothered to care enough to pay attention. Again, I'm wondering if I read the same book as everyone else.

3 stars feels like a generous rating, but I can't think of any solid reason to rate it lower. It simply wasn't my thing.

First I would like to thank Simon and schuster for an advance Arc of this book as well as the author Nancy Jooyoun Kim.
This is the first book I have read by this author and now I need to go check out her other book. I was really excited for this book when I heard about and was hoping it would be a book of the month pick and then lucked out with an advanced copy. It was so good and honestly gave me so much to think about. I thought it would be more of a mystery but was focused more on their lives. There are a lot of difficult topics in this book and I really liked reading about them. It gave a very important perspective on the lives of immigrants and their families and systematic issues. I feel like this book will stay with me for a while.
I was a little confused in the beginning because this book bounces between characters and also time periods but after a little bit I got the hang of it and would be disappointed when the point of view or year changed because I wanted to know what happened right away! It was a little slow in the beginning but then it really picked up towards the end. I can honestly say I did not predict the ending and I wish the book was longer!

Pub date: 10/10/23
Genre: family drama, suspense, ownvoices
Quick summary: It's 1999, and Sunny Kim has been gone a year when a man turns up dead at the Kim family home carrying a letter to her. Her children and husband will try to untangle the story of their connection and Sunny's struggles.

This is a quiet, character-driven book, and there's a lot of emotion in the narrative. Seeing Sunny struggle in a new world with a distant husband was painful at times, similar to other ownvoices immigrant stories. But her friendship with RJ added a new element to the narrative, and their scenes together were the more interesting part of the book for me. Literature is all about understanding, and seeing the connection between such different characters was lovely. I also liked the perspective of Sunny's children Ana and Ronald as they tried to discover who Sunny was beyond her role as their mother.

This book is a slow-burn and I do wish it had been closer to 300 pages than 400 - but I think it was still worth the read! 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

Thank you Atria Books for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had so promise but it was so slow and disappointing. The characters were flat, I wanted to learn more about them, their decisions and the drama in their lives. Instead the book was very repetitive and despite a lot happening, nothing actual happened. It all felt like we were just getting to be surface of their life experiences instead of all the nitty gritty details. The suspense portion felt like a failure because it dragged on so much. I liked the idea of the book but just didn’t get as many details as I wanted.

With switching timelines that I found confusing at times - we go between 1999 and 1977. A Korean American family trying to assimilate while hiding their own secrets. It all starts to come to a head when a man is found dead with a note for the missing wife/mom.

Thank you NetGalley for my advanced reader copy

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the eARC.

It is no secret that I love a good dual storyline. However, this story was slow and hard to keep my interest. I am glad that the mystery resolved itself in the end, but it was not an easy one to get through.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗞𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗢𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 by Nancy Jooyoun Kim had so much potential. A missing mom, a dead body in the backyard, Korean immigrants raising children in the US - so many opportunities for an interesting story to unfold. Instead we get over 400 pages of pure snooze fest.
‌
There were so many characters, at times I had I had no idea who was talking and I realized I didn’t care to find out. A good edit and stronger writing would have helped this book immensely.

This novel is about the Kim family - parents John and Sunny, who emigrated to the US from Korea, and their American-born children Anastasia and Ronald. The book starts in 1999, when John finds a dead body in their Los Angeles backyard, with an envelope addressed to Sunny, who disappeared a year before. It goes forward from there with John, Ana, and Ronald’s perspectives, along with flashing back to Sunny’s perspective starting in 1977 and working its way up to the 90s.

Although the plot is propelled in part by the underlying mystery of what happened to the dead man, what happened to Sunny, and what the connection is between the two, this book isn’t really a mystery at heart. Rather, it is a slow literary exploration of so many themes - immigration and the attending culture shock, war and the PTSD of both civilians and soldiers, marriage and parenthood, police corruption, homelessness, and so much more.

I loved Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s first book, The Last Story of Mina Lee, which was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick. That one also was a quiet and slow book, but this one was even slower to get going. However, once I got into it, I really enjoyed it, and I thought the ending was great.

3.5 stars. The story moves slowly, but eventually all mysteries are solved. It's more a meditation on family, the immigrant experience, and secrets that it is a novel with a plot that moves. That being said, I really enjoyed the dual storylines, and the characters.

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, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.

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.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

In What We Kept to Ourselves, Ms. Kim initially sets her story in 1999 (back to times of dial up internet service) where the Kim family is trying to live a regular life, despite their wife/mother having disappeared almost a year ago.
Sunny and John had emigrated to the US to leave the difficult living and political situation in Korea, and seeking a more prosperous life in America. They came with dreams and expectations, many of which they abandoned and then transferred to their two children, Ana and Ronald. Two mysteries are gradually rolled out: the disappearance of Sunny and then several mysteries surrounding RJ, a man Sunny meets at the bus stop during a memorable moment.
One of my favorite aspects of What We Kept to Ourselves was the author's exploration of the dichotomy of immigration: wanting to find success in a new country, but still tied (in some cases very strongly and with unresolved issues) to their country of origin.
There were a lot of storylines in the book and, for me, not all were necessary and made the book a bit confusing. Sunny's disappearance was also not fully developed - did John even file a police report? The ending also got a bit messy, but overall the story and characters were interesting. Nice sophomore book by Ms. Kim (and if you haven't already read The Last Story of Mina Lee, add it to your TBR list). Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read What We Kept to Ourselves in exchange for an honest review.

Ana is a young college student in Berkeley, trying to move on from the disappearance of her mother, Sunny, the year before. Her brother Ronald is still home with her dad, John, and neither are handling life without Sunny very well. But when John finds a dead man in their yard clutching a letter addressed to Sunny, Ana is determined to find out what this man has to do with her mother and her mother’s disappearance. As Ana digs deep into her parents’ past she finds there was a lot of Sunny that she kept to herself.

I enjoyed this historical fiction that chronicles the journey of Korean immigrants to the promised land which wasn’t as beautiful and full of opportunities as they had hoped. Sunny and John left a middle class life in Korea to avoid the political turmoil of the time. There were parts of the novel that were slow and repetitive but overall I liked the mystery embedded in a historical family saga. The story is told with flashbacks to the past and from multiple POVs and had a surprising ending that I did not see coming. If you enjoyed The Last Story of Mina Lee, you will enjoy this one too.

What We Kept to Ourselves tackles Korean heritage and history in fresh, nuanced ways, joining The Evening Hero - one of my favorite 2023 reads - as a book that NEEDS to be assigned reading about the Korean War and the "American dream."

The way Nancy Jooyoun Kim deftly tackles intersectionality is reminiscent of Celeste Ng and Joanna Ho: addressing the "both/and" of AAPI hate and Asian anti-Blackness, as well as the many faces of police corruption. The characters also shoulder their guilt quietly, a Fault Lines-esque ennui and shame especially present in the mom Sunny's flashback chapters.

While others have voiced a need for a quicker pace, I'm nosy and was totally engrossed from start to finish. Also, as an Art History major and Magritte lover, I enjoyed the fan service.

I admire the way Kim writes about immigration, belonging, ownership, and patriarchy while word-apparating readers seamlessly between the timelines. Grateful to Atria Books for the DRC!

Thanks to Atria for the copy of this book!

Told in dual timelines from 1977 to 1999, we follow the story of the Kim family. In 1977, Sunny is pregnant and coming to Los Angeles from Korea with her husband, John. She often feels isolated and America isn't what she expected it to be. In 1999, Sunny has been missing for a year when a dead body turns up in the Kim's yard - holding an envelope with Sunny's name on it.

I love stories of immigrant families, and also love a plot moved forward by an intriguing mystery. This one is slower and more descriptive, exploring themes of post-war reality, what it's like to leave your home country, and family dynamics. I have a hard time when the mystery is slowburn, and thought this was a little overly descriptive and could have been edited down. I enjoyed the exploration of how different traumas what we have can connect us in unexpected ways. One part that stuck out to me was the narrative on what it's like to be a woman with a husband and children and then finally be able to express yourself when you're no longer only defined by those gender roles.

Joe is a Korean immigrant living in LA with his two children Anna and RJ Anna is a graduate student at Berkeley and RJ is in high school their mother Sonny has been missing for over a year and they have no idea what happened to her. Joe wants his daughter to move back home he is a slight believer and conspiracy theories and fears for the future. The day before she returns for the Christmas holidays Joe finds a man dead in his backyard with a letter address to his missing wife Sunny. Throughout the book each chapter jumps from one year to another and we get chapters from most characters point of view including the missing Sunny. We also learn how the dead guy Ronald new Joe’s missing wife and the impact that one meeting will have on this family in their future. I didn’t want to give too much away because this is an awesome book! Told from the viewpoint we rarely get to see and that is people who immigrate to this country what they expect their regrets in the guilt for those left behind. This is way more than just your average missing woman story it includes racism police malfeasance The place is loneliness can take us and the strength of a family‘s love. I really really loved this book it was so good and so refreshing to read from the viewpoint it was told, they even head a blind woman in the story so shout out! I definitely recommend this book I want to think atria books and net Galley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Last Story of Mina Lee" comes "What We Kept to Ourselves," the story of the one family's search for answers after the disappearance of their mother.

The story begins in 1999 as Ana and Ronald Kim are struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished one year ago. Their father, John, is feeling more isolated from his children than ever before. Nearly a year after Sunny's disappearance, John stumbles upon a dead man in the family's backyard. The stranger is holding a letter addressed to Sunny, leaving the family with questions about the man's history and possible connections to Sunny. As secrets unfurl, we learn more about Sunny's life, beginning in 1977 when Sunny is pregnant and has just moved from Los Angeles from Korea with her husband.

"What We Kept to Ourselves" explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children and hus­bands and wives, and is a powerful meditation on identity, migration, and the American dream. This book first caught my attention when it was described as a mystery/thriller, but I think it would be more accurate to categorize it as historical fiction or family drama. The story switches between the points of view of John, Ana, and Ronald, with flashbacks beginning in 1977 from Sunny's perspective, so you really get to know each character. I enjoyed the chapters told from Sunny's point of view the most and found her story moving and heartbreaking. There is so much to discuss about this book, making it a perfect choice for book clubs and reading groups.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim!

This was the first book I've read by this author. I was intrigued by the premise, but found that the story moved much too slowly, possibly due to the multiple timelines. This is basically a family drama with a side of mystery, which is what initially drew me to the book. The first three-quarters of the book moves incredibly slowly and I kept putting it down. I'm sure this would be a good fit for someone who doesn't mind a slow read.