When We Fell Apart

Description

‘For me the true heart of the book was Min, and his search for a sense of belonging that neither America nor Korea is quite able offer him. His story is truly unforgettable’ Abi Daré, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

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Yu-jin is gifted.
Yu-jin is loved. 
Yu-jin is flourishing.

Yu-jin is dead.

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

After growing up in California, where he always felt ‘too Korean’ to fit in, Min has never felt quite the same certainty as Yu-jin about his life’s path. Unable to accept that she could have done this, Min throws himself into finding out what really happened to her.

But the more Min discovers, the more lost he feels. 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.
 
For fans of Celeste Ng, this is a profoundly moving and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties that bind families together – or break them apart.

Praise for When We Fell Apart

 ‘A lyrical exposition on what it’s like to be biracial, with one foot firmly planted in two distinct worlds, never completely fitting in, but capable of seeing what others do not’ Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author 
 
‘Moving and suspenseful, a reminder that the greatest mysteries are those of being and belonging’ Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author 
 
‘The most compelling debut novel I’ve read in years . . . Unforgettable’ Alexander Chee, bestselling author 
 
‘Heart-stopping and exquisitely plotted, this is a novel to get lost in’ Patricia Engel, bestselling author 
 
‘Melancholic, atmospheric, and consistently surprising’ Susie Yang, New York Times bestselling author 

‘When We Fell Apart will stay with me for a long time’ Angie Kim, bestselling author
 
‘A magical debut’ Amy Gentry, bestselling author