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When We Fell Apart

By: Soon Wiley
Narrated by: Daniel K. Isaac, Shannon Tyo
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Publisher's summary

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022: Harper’s Bazaar • Vogue • Good Housekeeping • CrimeReads • BookBub • Veranda • Shondaland • Debutiful • PureWow • and more!

A profoundly moving and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties that bind families together—or break them apart—as a young Korean American man’s search for answers about his girlfriend’s mysterious death becomes a soul-searching journey into his own bi-cultural identity

When the Seoul police inform Min that his girlfriend Yu-jin has committed suicide, he’s sure it can't be true. She was successful, ambitious, happy, just on the cusp of graduating from university and claiming the future she’d always dreamed of.

Min, on the other hand, born to an American father and Korean mother, has never felt quite the same certainty as Yu-jin about his life’s path. After growing up in California, where he always felt “too Korean” to fit in, he’s moved to Seoul in the hope that exploring his Korean heritage will help him find a sense of purpose. And when he meets Yu-jin, little does he know that their carefree relationship will set off a chain of events with tragic consequences for them both.

Devastated by Yu-jin’s death, Min throws himself into finding out why she could have secretly wanted to die. Or did she? With a controlling and powerful government official father, and a fraught friendship with her alluring and destructive roommate So-ra, Yu-jin’s life was much more complex than she chose to reveal to Min. And the more he learns about her, the more he begins to doubt he ever really knew her at all.

As Yu-jin’s story—a fraught exploration of selfhood, coming-of-age, and family expectations—collides with Min’s, the result is an engrossing thriller that poses powerful, urgent questions about cultural identity, family bonds, secrets, and what it truly means to belong.

"Transportive and poignant."—Susie Yang

"Spellbinding."—Jamie Ford

"A young writer to watch."—Jess Walter

"Unforgettable."—Abi Daré

"The most compelling debut novel I've read in years."—Alexander Chee

"Heart-stopping and exquisitely plotted."—Patricia Engel

"Will stay with me for a long time."—Angie Kim

"Gorgeous."—Julia Phillips

©2022 Soon Wiley (P)2022 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

"Wiley is a master of structure and pacing, with a gift for ending chapters at their most gripping moments, which gives this quiet, mournful novel the page-turning quality of a thriller. Yet what makes When We Fell Apart such a must-read is its portrayal of the extraordinary pressure faced by young people in Korea to conform and perform."
The Washington Post

"In his suspenseful debut . . . Soon Wiley navigates two different points of view on a young woman’s mysterious suicide . . . That we know her tragic conclusion doesn’t make [Yu-jin's] past any less urgent than Min’s quest in the present. This is a story about young people constrained in their self-development, one by his own internal pressures, the other by social expectations that are at odds with her true desires." The New York Times Book Review

"Death arrives quickly and triggers a deepening mystery in When We Fell Apart, the celebrated debut novel of Soon Wiley. . . . Wiley tells parallel stories in alternating, brief chapters—Min's and Yu-jin's, one a roller-coaster of suspense and suspicion, the other a gradual awakening . . . But there are secrets held and kept, secrets that define and deepen characters. There are moments here that beg for the movie rights to be signed: a father-daughter fishing trip where lessons are taught gently but must be followed rigidly; a moment on a dormant driving range when a woman claims her voice for the first time; and a betrayal that leads to one character's destruction. . . . [And] there is another character, one that Wiley lays out just as carefully as he does his young lovers. It is Korea, a nation that has seen conquerors bent on its destruction, on erasing its ambitions."
USA Today