What We Kept to Ourselves, Nancy Jooyoun Kim
What We Kept to Ourselves, Nancy Jooyoun Kim
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

What We Kept to Ourselves

Author: Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Narrator: Jennifer Kim

Unabridged: 11 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/10/2023


Synopsis

A “propulsive and moving story of a family torn asunder by their mother’s disappearance” (Bookreporter) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Story of Mina Lee.

1999: At the end of the millennium, 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 than ever before. One evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of an unhoused stranger in the backyard with a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever.

1977: Newly married, Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her hardworking 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 with a veteran at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans 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.

Both “an intricately crafted mystery and a heart-wrenching family saga” (Michelle Min Sterling, New York Times bestselling author), set against the backdrop of social unrest and Y2K, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores memory, storytelling, forgiveness, and what it means to dream in America.

About Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Nancy Jooyoun Kim is the New York Times bestselling author of What We Kept to Ourselves and The Last Story of Mina Lee, a Reese’s Book Club pick. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mai on February 26, 2025

Nancy is a master with words. I was first introduced to her work, as I'm sure many of you were, with the incredibly moving mother and daughter saga, THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE. Susan Straight made an incredible map of 1001 novels in the US with corresponding dots on a map. Mina's feature is at 8th a......more

Goodreads review by Darla on October 07, 2023

Such a sad story. John and Sunny escape Korea with too many scars. Casualties of the DMZ. Their children, Ana and Ronald, don't get a smidgen of a chance to understand the baggage that crushes their family. The current timeline is just before Y2K, a year after Sunny has disappeared. The past timelin......more

Goodreads review by Wendy on June 07, 2023

[URL not allowed] The dual timeline in this story works so well and comes together at the end leaving the reader wanting more. The story follows a Korean family living in California. The Kim family, John, Sunny, and their children, Ana and Ronald, are thrown a curve ball when S......more

Goodreads review by Debra on October 29, 2023

Love, secrets, the past, choice, a disappearance, the present. For me this book was a little too long and could have used some editing. Families are interesting things. WE love them, they can be toxic, they can be loving, they can be dysfunctional, they come with expectations. For me, this was an oka......more

Goodreads review by Martie on July 11, 2023

Genre: Mystery/Family Saga/Suspense/LGBT Publisher: Atria Books Pub. Date: Oct. 10, 2023 “What We Kept to Ourselves” follows a Korean-American family living in California. The protagonists are John Kim, Sunny, and their college-age kids, Anna and Ronald. The setting alternates between 1977 and 1999. Jo......more


Quotes

"Jennifer Kim narrates this story of the Kim family. In 1999, the Korean immigrants are struggling with the disappearance of their matriarch, Sunny, a year earlier. Kim captures all the raw emotion of a family that is having a difficult time connecting in the midst of a crisis. When a deceased Black man is found in the Kims’ backyard with a note addressed to Sunny by his side, members of the family investigate, at their peril, to discover the man’s relationship to the family. Flashbacks give Kim a chance to shine at depicting the prejudice and racism of the immigrant experience. This slow burn of a narration packs social commentary into a compelling plot."