Nancy Jooyoun Kim | THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE

Plot (via Goodreads):

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.

Review:

MINA LEE GIVES ME ALL THE FEELS. Seriously, this book is heartbreaking and emotionally-charged with a beautiful prose and characters that jump out at you and drag you through the story whether you're ready or not. While this one begins almost in a mystery-sense, it is far from it. This is a character-driven journey of two women (mother and daughter) that will both fascinate the reader and captivate you from the first chapter. 

The characters in this one were all so well written that this could have been a non-fiction novel. I think each and every character really took their time to shine and bring something to the story. Obviously, Mina and Margot were my favorite characters and as the novel progressed, my heart broke for both of them and I so badly wanted to find these two women and befriend them. 

This one really touches on a lot of issues dealing with racism and I found that Jooyoun Kim did a great job of bringing the reader back to when times were even worse than they are now. There were so many times during this one that I was thinking to myself that I was enjoying the story so much, I didn't even know if I wanted to know how Mina died. 

If you want a character-driven and powerfully written story that will tug at your emotions and give you brilliant characters, please get a copy of this book and enjoy this story. It is a novel of perfection and poignant beauty. 

Special thanks to Park Row for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 5/5