Angelina Lee, 40, a newly-divorced Korean-American, feels "...completely unmoored by the sudden and tragic death of her mother, she hopes studying Korean will reconnect her to her roots, but nothing about Seoul feels familiar. Further complicating matters is the resurgence of an alluring man from Angelina’s past, and fellow classmate Keisuke Ono, an irritatingly good looking Japanese American journalist who refuses to leave her alone. What she’ll barely admit, however, is the true reason behind her trip. She’s convinced the key to understanding her mother’s suicide lies in Korea." She finds out that her mother's older sister, Sunyuh, with whom she was extremely close "...disappeared under the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII—a secret the family buried for over sixty years.' Angelina is convinced that the secret to her mother's death is linked to Sunyuh--so she travels to Seoul to find out.

Of family [3 generations], love, mothers and daughters, disconnect, the horrors of the Japanese occupation/comfort women--to frame a few issues. Angelina's time in Seoul is complicated by Lars [a man from her past] and Keisuke [fellow student and journalist].

A dual timeline--past [1945] and present [2005]--primarily, but not exclusively.

Description:
"Angelina looked down at the top of her mother's scalp, gray roots defying a forest of brown"

"Disconnect" mush: "She left herself melt into him."
Sometimes melodramatic.

No spoiler but I thought the breadcrumbs were obvious for resolution. And I do not like a neat and tidy ending--which I thought it was on two fronts.

Somewhat pedestrian.

Engaged at first, but slowly lost interest/momentum.

3.5, not rounding up.

Be sure to read the Author's Note.

Stone Angels is saga of finding one’s roots, while trying to understand her mother’s last actions for Angelina Lee. By Helena Rho this is the voice of three women of Lee’s family. Part history lesson not only for Angelina, a Korean American woman, but also for the reader. It is not difficult to follow the back and forward with the women, showing how the past can affect the present. It is a gripping read if heartbreaking to read at times. A story that needed to be told and is done so with grace and quiet boldness.

Stone Angels by Helena Rho is an important read that brings up a dark time in history of "comfort women" in Japan that were young girls taken from Korea. That is a small part of this story but an important one. The families that were broken apart have an effect for generations and this is what we see in this book. Angelina's story is so important as she travels to her mom's country to learn Korean after her mom. has passed. While there she uncovers more about the family's history. There were parts of Angelina's story that I didn't love, but I understand why the author included it to show the human side of the next generations. This book has so much to discuss and would make a great bookclub pick., my book club was able to get a copy from The Book Club cookbook Galley Match program and our discussion was fantastic, with varying views and we all picked up different important parts of the book as important. Look for this book out in March 2025.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Helena Rho for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Stone Angels coming out March 4, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I really love Korean stories. I’ve learned a lot about Korea’s history. So I was intrigued by the summary of this book. It was good. I think it was well-written. I think I was just expecting a little something different. I usually enjoy journey books, but there were some things I didn’t enjoy about this book. The affairs weren’t my favorite. I would check out other books by this author.

Stone Angels is a page turner driven by a quest to understand multicultural identity and the inherited trauma of exile. The stories of multiple characters are tightly woven together in an international drama. Dynamic characters in complex relationships, interesting historical context and crisp description of place will draw you into the story. You will be intrigued, heartbroken, and long for more. I fully recommend Rho's masterful novel!

A love letter to women; an ode to motherhood. ‘Stone Angels’ tells the story, from multiple points of view, of three generations of women in a Korean family. It is an ambitious novel that explores loneliness and grief, love and loss, intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, and redemption.

By far the most compelling story is that of Sunyuh, kidnapped and forced to become a ‘comfort woman’ by the Japanese during WWII. Her story is an important and horrific part of history that needs to be heard and remembered, and for that alone, I am thankful for this book. Her story is the emotional backbone of the story as her experience ripples out with devastating impact on her mother, her sister Gongju, and then down to her niece Angelina.

Most of the story revolves around Angelina, and while her narrative is the least-compelling, it resonates with authenticity as she explores her cultural heritage and personal history, faces her perceived failings, and ultimately finds what she has been seeking. And with her we become immersed in Korean culture, with beautiful depictions of its land, its rich history, and its people [I particularly loved learning more about the haenyo, the female free divers on Jeju Island].

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is an important story and I thank Helena Rho for writing it. I am very glad to have read it. (Pub Date for this novel is March 4, 2025)

This novel follows three generations of women in a Korean family, with the most compelling story being that of Sunyuh, a "comfort woman" abducted by the Japanese during WWII. Her harrowing experience is the emotional core of the book. However, the focus shifts to her niece, Angelina, whose love life detracts from the more poignant themes of the story. While the descriptions of Korea are beautiful, the pacing felt uneven. Overall, it’s a thought-provoking novel about trauma across generations, but I wished it had stayed more focused on Sunyuh’s story.

I love a story of a family that spans time and historical events. That's the historian in me, so I was excited to read this story of a Korean/Korean American family. Unfortunately for me, I really did not connect with the primary MC, Angelina, a 40 year old recent divorcee. She travels to her mother's home, Korea, after her mother's death, to take a Korean language course, but also to reconnect with her mother's family. When she arrives at her grandmother's house, she learns from a cousin about a family secret, that her mother had a sister she never mentioned, an aunt that Angelina is named for, Sunyuh.

The rest of my review contains spoilers, and can be found at Goodreads (with spoilers hidden).

"Stone Angels" is narrated from multiple perspectives, including a woman in the mid-2000s and her mother and aunt from earlier times. The mother and aunt's storylines are complex and resonate with the human experience. The modern storyline follows the young woman's search for her family and belongings. However, her repeated focus on her sense of unworthiness and trauma was frustrating, although it effectively highlighted the theme of intergenerational trauma. Overall, the young woman's storyline was also enjoyable.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I've read another book recently about Comfort Women which is not the main focus of this book, but does spend a bit of time on them. It's good to see more attention being brought to this horrible time when armies stole young girls to use and abuse them. I was not a fan of Angelina, the main character in this book. She is useful to see how generations of Korean women react to each generation before, but she seems pretty lost and pliable most of the time as she keeps quickly getting involved with men and new projects while not really thinking about what she wants or doing what's best for her children.

The best form of literature comes from the existential conflict of a character at war with herself, and in Stone Angels we get war in sweeping charges and retreats with Angelina. We also work through an immersion in another culture, led by the character herself; Korea comes to us as confusingly as it comes to our protagonist, an American-Korean who seeks to find her Korean family and to understand what cultural forces shaped her mother and hence herself.

Stone Angels holds a family secret finally big enough to anchor a big book – the sex slaves taken and abused by the Japanese and unacknowledged both by their tormentors and by their own country. This isn't backdrop or political frippery—it's laid out for us through direct, horrific experience.

There are chapters of anguish and chapters where we take wing. There is dark lyricism (as in February 1945) and there is resolution (as in Gongju's salvation as she loses her unrequited love). There is nearly a Buddhist guidebook on how to recover a crumbled adult life from failure. The author takes huge risks in what is a novel of interiority, with complex structure and double timelines, and wins through. Stone Angels is a redemption story, and we all love redemption.

This is an important book you won't truck off to the book sale. Keep it and revisit it like calling up an old friend.

After her mother commits suicide in 2006, Angelina Lee uses the opportunity of a summer course in Korea as part of her doctoral program studies. She left Seoul thirty-five years before as a child when her parents emigrated to the US. She returns in search of answers about the crippling sadness that led her mother to end her life. It’s also an opportunity for her to examine her own life’s trajectory after divorce. Her excavation of the family’s past bring light to history dating from the World War II era Japanese occupation of Korea. Her mother’s sister was kidnapped and forced to become one of the “comfort” women brutalized by Japanese troops. The entire family suffered in unimaginable, long-lasting ways. Readers will cheer for Angelina’s courage as she persists in her dual missions, join her in sorrow for her scarred family, and admire her as she opens herself to a life that permits joy

Author Helena Rho weaves past and present into a compelling whole, telling a multi-layered tale of generational effects of trauma. In this skillfully wrought novel, she employs powerful scenes, lyrical descriptions of settings, and flawless plotting to create a compelling experience for her readers. I heartily recommend Stone Angels.

3.5 Stars

I enjoyed the historical part of this book a great deal, but the dynamics between the men and women, husbands and wives, not so much. The stories of the kidnapping of Korean women and what they went through at the hands of the Japanese was horrific, inhumane, and cruel.

Stone Angels is told from a variety of perspectives, from a woman in the mid 2000s to her mother and aunt throughout their earlier lives.

I particularly enjoyed the storylines and perspectives of the mother and aunt, as they were complex and rang true to the human experience (although what they went through is far from typical). The modern-day storyline was interesting in the young woman’s search for her family and belonging.

It frustrated me that the young woman focused so much on her same problems over and over-kind of an “I am not worthy” perspective. I’m assuming this was intentional, to show her being stuck in her trauma (and the intergenerational aspects of trauma), but it became a lot of what she talked about. Otherwise I liked her storyline too.

I really enjoyed this multiple POV book set mostly in Korea. I loved the setting and the descriptions of Korea. The MC is a woman who journeys to the land of her ancestors in search on answers. The story expands to include her mother and aunt, who she did not know existed. The descriptions of life as a 'Comfort Woman' are painful to read but add to the depth of the narrative. Overall, really great.

The premise and setting of this novel were very promising; however, the meat of the story did not deliver. I wasn't captivated by our main character's story and I felt it really dragged at times. I did really enjoy the historical fiction element though. Overall just so-so.

Fascinating, riveting, instructive novel about a woman’s return to Korea where she finds answers to family secrets and insight into her mother’s suicide. Very informative about the Japanese occupation of Korea and the history of the “comfort women.”

This is not a book for me. While the premise is a solid one--a woman travels to Korea to learn her family's language and to search for a long-lost/disowned relative--the execution is poor. The characters are flat and, despite the author's attempts to have the protagonist face her insecurities and trust issues, don't actually develop or grow. Some of the characters don't seem to have a purpose in the book, or don't make sense in the context, and there's an awful lot of willing suspension of disbelief readers are asked to have regarding everyday modern life.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-galley! I really enjoyed this: I've been into historical fiction and non-fiction lately and have not delved much into Asian history, as I've been focusing more on my own heritage. The incredibly important and not often talked about issue of Korean "comfort women" the Japanese enslaved for decades was something I knew about, but I'm not that well versed on Asian history of the last century or two. This tells the story of Angelina, a Korean-American woman visiting Korea to discover more about her mother's family and kind of find herself, I guess I'd say. The story goes back and forth between her mother and aunt in the past, and Angelina in the present. Angelina is a recently divorced mom who's struggling with her mother's suicide and her life choices, mostly of men: she has two affairs while traveling, one with an old best friend who she "should have married", and with a younger Asian American man she meets. She eventually opens up to the younger, completely non-toxic man and discovers/deals with some sore family history as she searches for traces of her elderly aunt, who was a "comfort woman" kidnapped and enslaved by the Japanese. This bogged down a little for me in some of Angelina's parts and I got a little tired of the men and affairs-stuff, but her story was cohesive and I enjoyed it, especially the history!

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC for an honest review. The story revolves around 3 generations of a Korean family as lived by the women; grandmother, two sisters and the daughters. I felt that the story of Sunyuh, one of the sisters, was the most interesting and harrowing part of the book. She was abducted by the Japanese military during WWII and used as a "comfort woman". She was a sex slave and her time in the "comfort station", as it was euphemistically called, was hard to read about. I wish the book had centered on her life more. The parts that centered on her niece, Angelina, were unnecessarily long and I was not as interested. The descriptions of Korea were beautifully depicted. I enjoyed the story but it dragged on a bit too much with Angelina's love life.