• What We Kept to Ourselves

  • A Novel
  • By: Nancy Jooyoun Kim
  • Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
  • Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (10 ratings)

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What We Kept to Ourselves  By  cover art

What We Kept to Ourselves

By: Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
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Publisher's summary

This timely and surprising novel about a family’s search for answers following the disappearance of their mother from the New York Times bestselling author Nancy Jooyoun Kim explores “immigration, identity, love, and loss. A gorgeous, thrilling read” (Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author).

1999: 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. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever.

1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof 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 at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the 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), What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores what it means to dream in America.

©2023 Nancy Jooyoun Kim (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

What listeners say about What We Kept to Ourselves

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great book and narrator!

Loved the story and narrator on this one. Kim is such a great storyteller and I love hearing the characters and settings come to life over audio.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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The despair of Sunny

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Sunny’s despair was palpable and her resolve resonated with me.

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  • AF
  • 11-14-23

Excruciatingly slow

Sorry, I think this would have been a better paperback for me. Just too drawn out.

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1 person found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Just ok.

I wanted to love it. It’s very slow, I powered through hoping for it to get a better flow, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t completely hate it. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it either. Reviews on good reads are very similar to mine, so I don’t think it was just me.

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1 person found this helpful