Lee’s self-aware, relentlessly honest narrator feels absolutely real, and her story cuts deep.
A long-simmering tragedy unfolds in the Kim family of California, from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
The title of Lee’s heartrending debut novel employs a Korean word that isn’t defined in the text. Most sources describe “han” as a collective feeling of sorrow, resentment, regret, and internalized anger stemming from the historical experience of suffering; the story of the Kims expresses this complex emotion in a number of ways. The novel opens in December 2001, when Jane Kim’s mother shows up unexpectedly at her apartment in San Francisco, announcing she’s planning to move into town from Jane’s childhood home in Napa. Jane is not happy to see her, explaining, “Our relationship had soured to the point where I’d become almost mute around her, a habit formed out of instinct and anger.” The elder Kims, who have recently split up after decades of incompatibility, arrived along with the wave of Koreans who came to the U.S. after the Immigration Act of 1965 removed restrictions on Asian arrivals; those optimistic times are now far in the past. Jane is in her last semester of law school, but plans to leave the state and apply for the bar somewhere else, seemingly to escape her parents. Later chapters revisit the childhood Jane shared with her brother, Kevin, both having had notable junior tennis careers, and track the unfolding of a serious crime Kevin committed in 2002, when he was a San Jose cop. Lee captures the culture of the Korean diaspora both with small details—a jar of kimchi buried in the yard for more than 10 years, dug up only when the house is sold—and with broader brush strokes. “We have a sense of loyalty, of obligation, as if we came into the world with it programmed in our DNA,” Jane observes. “Responsibility reaches beyond the filial, beyond members of our own families, encompassing an entire network of people with whom we share shame and grief and pride and a way of seeing something funny in the bleakest situations.” But it is at that last point that the author parts ways with the community. Lee’s refusal to find comedy in the Kims’ personalities and predicament is rare, and extremely effective.
Lee’s self-aware, relentlessly honest narrator feels absolutely real, and her story cuts deep.Pub Date: tomorrow
ISBN: 9781643757254
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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