Now, this is a story! Mother-daughter stories are always hit or miss with me. This is better suited for those who enjoy literary fiction than a reader like me.

First-time novelist Nancy Jooyoum Kim tackles some tough subjects in this novel: the power of language, immigration, death and the meanings of family and home.

Margot Lee has lived in Portland, Oregon, for the last few years while her mother, Mina, lives in Los Angeles. Her friend, Miguel, is moving to LA and Margot offers to drive him. She plans to surprise her mother, but in reality, she is going to check up on her. Mina hasn’t answered the phone in two weeks. Upon their arrival, Margot and Miguel find Mina dead in her Koreantown apartment.

Margot feel guilty that she didn’t follow up sooner, but the two weren’t close, yet they weren’t estranged. Margot hated talking to her mother as her mother spoke mostly Korean, but Margot barely speaks that language so phone communication is strained at best. Although Mina appears to have died from natural causes and the police do not suspect foul play, Margot has an intuition that murder is more likely and begins to look into her mother’s life.

The story alternates between 1987, when Mina came into the United States as an illegal immigrant, and 2014, the time of Mina’s death. The 1987 version is told from Mina’s point of view, while the 2014 is from Margot’s.

The plot is rather slow-moving, but I enjoyed it. As Margot digs, she learns Mina’s secrets, rather shocking secrets that were the highlights of the novel. I believe that Author Kim did this on purpose---while the secrets are nothing that hasn’t happened to others before, the slowness of the plot makes them stand out.

There were lots of mentions of Korean food and other words that I could never really figure out what exactly Author Kim meant. That also slowed the plot a bit. Every time I thought this would be a 3-star book, a secret was revealed elevating it to a 5-star read. Therefore, The Last Story of Mina Lee receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

In the first chapter, I wasn't sure this was going to be a book for me, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and am so glad I gave it a fair chance. Well written, emotional, suspenseful with glipmses into the "American dream" and what life is like for those who find it doesn't glisten quite as brightly as they hoped. It covers the complications and complexity of family and secrets and begs the question of how much do we owe to our progeny or those who come before when it comes to our truths, freedom, and expectations.

This book was everything.

Easily 5 stars.
This was an arc but i forgot to get to it and its released now but this book was beautifully written it flashed back to the past and present day each chapter and it touched down on immigration and alot of asian culture foods which i loved and got hungry reading about.

This was definitely a thriller but not like a dark thriller but it had alot of good moments i loved this book alot. The ending was super good and i was not expecting that. The story followed margot trying to find out what happen to her mother after coming to her mothers place and finding her dead and the police not helping her because the crime was labeled as an “ accident “ so margot decides to dive in and solve her own case and find out secrets that her mother kept from her.

Overall this book was amazing.

The Last Story of Mina Lee is beautifully written but I just had a hard time staying engaged with the plotline and had to put this one down. My reading has been all over the place during 2020 and has very much been mood-based. After picking this one up a few different times, I realized it might just not be a great fit for me right now.

As always, I appreciate the generosity of this publisher for allowing me the opportunity to review this book.

(I chose my 3-star as the option to be neutral, as there isn't a way to not pick a rating when submitted feedback on NetGalley. Thank you for your understanding!)

This book was amazing! A mother and daughter story with so many twists and intriguing. I would highly recommend this nook/

The Last Story Of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim appealed to me, honestly, because the cover was pink. Then I saw that it was picked for Reese’s Book Club and knew I had to get to it sooner rather than later. You see, I give into hype a lot. As expected, this audiobook was well worth my time.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s The Last Story Of Mina Lee is basically a parallel timeline sort of book. We get the story, obviously of Mina Lee, basically what her past was like as an orphan who had come to America as a refugee from the Korean War through stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store and falling in love. Meanwhile, we also get the present day story of Mina’s daughter Margot. Margot has come home to visit her mother and finds her dead in her apartment. Margot wants to get to the bottom of what happened. But also, Margot has got some pretty big life decisions to make and it seems like she just isn’t happy with her life choices or lot in life. Anyways, when Margot finds her mother, she comes to the realization that there is so much that her mother has hidden from her.

WHAT DID I THINK?
I felt like The Last Story Of Mina Lee was quite unique from what I’ve read so far this year. Granted, family secrets are not exactly a new thing. However, the way that Nancy Jooyoun Kim wove the story felt fresh to me. This felt different from the thrillers and romance I’ve been consuming this year. Maybe it is because this book would fall more under the women’s fiction genre? Regardless, the story is so compelling and I just felt for both Margot and Mina and it is sad, realizing Mina is dead and won’t have the same connection with Margot that maybe they could have had if Margot had known Mina’s full story and past. That’s life though. On the whole, this story is superbly plotted and woven. It is absolutely worth the read.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
Y’all, finally an audiobook with a new to me narrator! The narrator is Greta Jung and she does a perfect job. The audiobook is 10 hours and 44 minutes long. I listened to it sped up to 1.25-1.5x and that was ideal. I felt like Jung’s narration was timed really well. Her voice flowed perfectly with the story. There were even times that I was compelled to listen despite not driving or being in the middle of moving around or in a chore. I think audio is a great way to experience The Last Story Of Mina Lee, especially if it is a priority for you to read this book.

Unfortunately, this book just didn't hit the mark for me. I couldn't identify with the main protagonist, Margot. Aspects in this novel just weren't clicking for me and I felt like there were parts that were disjointed. While I did finish this book, I was bored in places. From previous reviews, something that is very important to me in a novel is that it can hold my attention. THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE did not do that. I would however, be open to reading something else by this author. I did enjoy some of the writing and for that reason, I'm giving this book two stars.

An absolute wonderful read. Kim offers her readers a glimpse into the world of a mom
Escaping With her daughter from Korea to America during the Korean War. When Margot finds her mom Dead in her apartment, she begins to dig into her mother’s past. As someone one raised in
America, Margot oftentimes struggles with her Korean heritage. It’s when her mom
Suddenly dies, that she learns to appreciate her upbringing and understand her mother’s past. This book is filled with wonderful characters, a story to please and mouth watering Korean food! Enjoy

Nancy Jooyoun Kim's debut novel The Last Story of Mina Lee was a delight to read. It is part slow burn mystery and part coming-of-age story and at the heart of this novel is the complicated relationship between a single immigrant mother, Mina, and her American born daughter, Margot. It begins with Margot returning to her childhood home in LA's Koreatown to visit her mother to discover her mother had died under suspicious circumstances. The story is told in parallel narratives, Margot in present-day 2014 investigating her mother's death and Mina in 1987 when she immigrated from South Korea to the United States hoping to leave behind her painful past and start a new life and the struggles she encountered along the way. This is a novel of our times and examines immigration, race, class, gender, identity, family, and belonging. The Last Story of Mina Lee is a perfect pick for book clubs.

I really enjoy reading about different cultures and learning history about different countries and how it impacts peoples lives. The Last Story of Mina Lee is a great book, it tells the story of about the relationship between a mother and daughter and their struggles. We learn about Mina's life and how her struggles growing up have helped to become a strong person who survives in the US.

I think the book felt a little bit stretched out near the end but overall it's a great book and I'm glad I was able to read it over the past few days.

This was such a lovely, heartbreaking book! It’s deeply tragic to start a book, already knowing the fate of the titular character.

This book opens with Margot discovering that her mother, Mina, has died. What unfolds is an investigation into Mina’s life by a daughter who never really understood Mina. But it’s also an intertwined story where we learn about Mina’s life from her own perspective, following her arrival to America and how she struggled to make ends meet.

The author does a great job showing the strain between mother and daughter, and highlighting how little the two women know each other; it hits harder knowing that there’s really no way for Margot to reconcile with Mina. The story also explores how children of immigrants might want nothing to do with their parents’ way of life or culture. Here, Korean culture is almost foreign to Margot, who can’t even speak the language, and I just really loved this. It’s so common for children of immigrants who perhaps don’t reject the culture outright like Margot does, but still lose that connection with their parents and other relatives.

Overall, a really lovely story about a mother and daughter across time, estranged and pulled back together by tragedy.

2.5 stars, rounded down for Goodreads. This book had so much potential. I started out enjoying it, particularly Mina's perspective of being an immigrant in the late 1980's from Korea. I found her chapters to be much more interesting than Margot's. But by halfway through I was bored with it. I did want to know what happened to Mina, so for that reason alone I kept reading. The ending was not as good as I'd hoped. Unfortunately only a 2.5 star read for me.

I really liked this book. It was different from other books I had read this year and I really enjoyed it. It covered topics I really wasn’t familiar with and I really liked all the characters as well.

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kin is a great tale of immigrants to the United States. The hardships the faced, the cruelty, the loss and fears could be felt on every page. It's a heartbreaking read. Family, immigration, and love come together in this entertaining story. The characters were believable. The pacing was mostly steady but slow in some spots. Other than that, this was an enjoyable journey. Past and present moments make for a good read, especially here. There are not many books featuring Korean immigrants and I was really pleased with this book. It was a treasure reading it. The cast of characters have a powerful way of keeping my full-attention. I was hooked into their story. Overall, I liked it.

This was a beautiful story about the dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship fraught with the unnecessary conflict that comes with lack of clear communication. It also highlighted the challenges faced by immigrant families and how that impacts their American born children. I really enjoyed this story, the author writes in an engaging and thoughtful way. I could have done less with the amount focused on the mystery and more exploration of Mina and Margot’s relationship but I found it overall an enjoyable read. Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Story of Mina Lee was a heart wrenching story that is about a mother/ daughter relationship, a mystery with the death of her mother and the journey of one woman's life as an immigrant in the United States. This is not a spoiler but this is a really sad book, I found myself ugly crying a lot through out this book. I also know that these people are made up but Nancy Jooyoum Kim wrote these characters so beautifully that I felt a connection to them. I felt for them and I just wanted to hug Mina!

he audiobook narrator is not great. The last 20% of the book is probably the best part. I feel like the book could have started at near the end and gone from there and been a much better book. I don't know how to categorize this book. It tried to be a mystery, but there was no real mystery. I felt bored the entire time, by by Margot and Mina. There were some poignant moments, but I was overall disappointed.
CW:
Dead body, death of a parent, shame, poverty, war, separation from family, PTSD, loss of a spouse, loss of a child, racial micro aggressions, grief, police violence, riots, depression, suicidal ideation, self harm, gentrification, car accident, religion: christianity, vomit, postpartum depression, cancer, deportation, stalking, rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, gun violence/threat of

The Last Story of Mina Lee turned out to be a tough one for me to get through - not because the story was bad, but because the subject matter was hard for me after recently suffering a loss of my own. Not my mother or I probably wouldn't have been able to get through this one at all, but this is not a book to read when you're in any stage of grief. I did finally make it through, but it took some time and I had to walk away and come back to it after a bit, but that is something I probably would've needed to do regardless of my personal circumstances because this is one terribly sad story. If you're a mother, a daughter, or both, you can understand so many things about the relationship between Margot and Mina, and wishing you'd taken more time, wishing you'd known someone better is something I feel like we all do when we lose a loved one. All in all, this story was emotional and heartbreaking more often than not. It's also very well written and Nancy Jooyoun Kim paints some vivid pictures with her words. This may not have been the right time for me to read this particular story, but this author has me intrigued and I'll certainly be watching to see what she does next.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.