Once again I find myself witness to the craze that appears to be the subject of hidden lesbian relationships. This is the third ARC I have picked up from Netgalley lately that concern this topic once you get reading and this is not indicated in the blurb. Not that I have anything against this topic but it can be very frustrating when you are expecting other plot themes. When I applied for this book initially I thought it would provide an interesting investigation of why the characters girlfriend committed suicide and an exploration of their relationship and anticipated a slight mystery to the plot.

In fact the motives behind the shocking suicide are soon revealed and the pace slows down and crawls along..Yujin the girlfriends character is rather flat and one dimensional as her story focuses on the fact that she has a hidden girlfriend and the fact that her father is a government minister does not add to the intrigue or sense of suspense, The boyfriend character and central protagonist Min has far more of interest to offer the reader. He is a biracial Korean American and we see his immense struggle to fit in and combine the 2 cultures.. In Min's narrative we explore the themes of acceptance, identity, expectation and belonging.

For a debut novel, this shows promise and I would definitely pick up a book written by Wiley in the future.

An intriguing story of love, friendship, and all the intricacies in between. The story is told between two narrative voices, that of Min and Yu-jin; the story unfolds as a web of both American and Korean customs. The dual-narration first sets itself up to be a mystery tale, with Min looking into why or how Yu-jin has committed suicide, but the story begins to be so much more. I couldn't put this story down, it was easy to read and very compelling.

When We Fell Apart paints an evocative picture of Seoul, of what 'identity' is, the difficulties and complexities of being inside and outside a culture - and the multiple ways that impacts. For many, the mystery/thriller element will no doubt add another layer again to all of that. However, Soon Wiley's writing and characterisation are rich enough to hold their own. Hopefully next time. There's much to recommend here, either way. A strong, confident debut.

Thank you to Netgalley & Simon & Schuster UK for the Gifted E-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Do you really know the person you love? Do you really know your best friend? This novel teaches us to never assume. This fantastic story takes us on a journey of self discovery, the writing was so vivid and descriptive I feel like we was on an adventure in Seoul.

The narrative was poignant and engaging and I swept along within the pages eager to read on.

The story was told from two perspectives which gave added depth to not just the story but to the characters themselves. Delicate topics were covered with dignity such as suicide and sexuality. Both topics that are really relevant today!

I think I was quite surprised at how much I really enjoyed this book and cant wait to read more by Soon Wiley.

Such a poignant read. This is so much more than a murder mystery novel. I can hold my hands up and say I know next to nothing about Seoul and Korean culture as a whole, but Wiley’s work has left me feeling…enriched. (I feel I actually enjoyed absorbing myself in the setting more than the narrative itself, but this is purely down to personal interest and curiosity!).

The dual narrative was a fantastic touch, and I was particularly taken with Yiu-jin’s storyline. I was delighted to discover a queer sub-narrative that I hadn’t been expecting, and also equally devastated by its results towards the end of the novel.

The language was evocative and atmospheric, but fundamentally left me with that awful, fascinating question: how well can we truly know a person?


Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for this privilege.

A novel of many layers, this is a really interesting and compelling read. We meet Min, a Korean-American who has moved from America to Korea looking to find somewhere where he feels he belongs. He has a Korean girlfriend, Yu-jin, a high achiever with a father who has a senior position in the government. Soon after the novel opens, Min is told that Yu-jin has committed suicide, news that leaves him feeling utterly shocked and then wondering when he really knew Yu-jin at all. Min goes on a quest to find out what really happened to Yu-jin. In the meantime there is a second narrative voice, that of Yu-jin and we see how her relationship with one of her flatmate’s, So-ra, and her parents, plus her ambitious nature put her on a difficult path. Another character is Misaki, the flatmate of both Yu-jin and So-ra. Misaki is Japanese and also something of an outsider, but she helps Min on his journey to uncover the truth behind Yu-jin’s death.
Far from being a straight-forward mystery, this novel also interrogates what constitutes home, family and belonging, shines a light on a woman who wants to be free but who also feels the strong pressure to obey her family’s wishes, and blend in with cultural norms, and how she deals with her friendship with a woman who pays far less heed to society’s expectations.
Definitely worth reading. .

It's hard to believe that this is Soon Wiley's debut - the book has all of the elements of a great mystery, but is truly so much more than that. Pitch perfect on character and atmosphere, this sort of slow burn thriller is my favorite time of read as I walk away entertained, but also feeling something and having learned something as well.

When we fall apart by Soon Wiley is a very well written book. It is told in a duel narrative form, of Min and Yu-jin. Min is Yu-jins boyfriend and he is trying to uncover the reasons as to why Min has committed suicide.

Min grew up in California to an American father and Korean mother so he is american-korean. They have moved to Seoul and it is here that he meets Yu-jin.

It is a very well told book, it is a multilayer, murder mystery esq book. It shows the multilayers that we are all made up from and how we can all appear to be different around different people. I liked the fact that each chapter alternated between Mom's and Yu-jin's point of view. It is a story that shows how difficult it can be to come from Asian origins, how the pressure to act, and be can have a deep impact on a person's life and how many feel that they have to hide certain parts of their lives from their families because they do not feel like they would be accept for who they were if their parents were to know the truth.

For me however the book was a little bit slow, it moves at quite a slow pace, and burns really slowly. Which was why I found it hard to get into and read.

But is was overall pretty good, with many good messages in it.

Lately, I am on a Korean wave trying to learn more about the culture and this book gave a good insight into their society, identity and family expectations.

It is told in a dual narrative, Yu-jin and Min's. Min wants to know what really happened to Yu-jin while Yu-jin tells why she did the things she did. Yu-jin was looking for acceptance from her family in a society where you are expected to be perfect and follow the path that your family sets up for you. She was also looking to be free and felt suffocated by everything and everyone. I didn't expect the queer element on the story and it was nice to explore it alongside the other themes,

We don't get to know Min's background very well, I believe it could have been explored a bit more, the ending was good enough for me. It resolved many things in a bittersweet manner that is quite realistic.

I enjoyed the plot a lot and the writing is very atmospheric, the descriptions of Seoul help you picture the story. This could be a movie!

This is a great debut and I look forward to reading more by this author.

This story takes place in two different time lines from the perspectives of Yu-jin and Min. There is a mystery and the reader discovers what happened from Yu-jin leading up to the event and from Min after the event. I enjoyed this form of storytelling as it meant I being given information in different ways. This book covers various aspects of the human experience but fundamentally I feel it is about identity. I felt so much sadness for these characters who believe they don’t quite fit. The author was also able to demonstrate the difference between what we show the world and what we feel inside.

There are so many things I would like to discuss but I don’t want to go into too much detail with regards to the story. I will say that I very much liked this book and look forward to reading more from this author.

This was Soon Wiley's debut novel and it certainly made an impact. This was such an atmospheric read that gave me much more than I expected.

When starting the book, I assumed that the plot would mainly be consumed by the mystery of Yu Jin's death -suspected by the police to be a suicide attempt. Min, Yu Jin's boyfriend, doesn't think she had any reason to commit suicide and is trying to figure out the truth - but there were so many other storylines weaving in and out giving two alternative narratives of their relationship.

A slow-burn kind of mystery that kept me gripping from start to finish, a thriller, a journey of self-discovery and how we present ourselves to the world.

I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that this novel is written in a dual narrative, and I was even more surprised when I found out there’s an important queer storyline as well.

Alternating between past and present, Yu-jin’s first-person and Min’s third-person narrative, Soon Whitley tells a captivating and well-written story about Korean American Min and his Korean girlfriend Yu-jin, who’s supposedly committed suicide. Slowly Min learns he didn’t know his girlfriend that well and slowly unravels what led to the death of Yu-jin. The author’s writing is prosaic and still so easily readable. This is a story about family relationships, power, (cultural) identity, and expectations.

Although I understood Yu-jin’s battles, the pressure she felt, Min’s voice appealed to me the most. Throughout this story, I clearly felt his struggle as a biracial man, his feelings of not belonging, never wholly being able to fit in. Sometimes I even wanted to know more of his life in the US; now, we only get snippets.

I loved that this novel was set in Seoul. I know next to nothing about Seoul, but Soon’s writing is so vivid that I could picture the city so well in my head.

Overall this is a great debut, and I highly recommend this novel. I can’t wait to read more by Soon Whiley.

When We Fell Apart is a novel about belonging and family, as a Korean-American man in Seoul tries to find out the truth about his Korean girlfriend's suicide. Min grew up in California with an American father and Korean mother, but has moved to Seoul to try and search for something intangible. When he met Yu-jin, a university student with a powerful father, their relationship seemed perfect, but when she suddenly takes her own life, Min ends up on a trail to work out the truth, discovering that he didn't know Yu-jin as well as he thought.

This is a layered book, set up like a murder mystery, but really about the multitudes within people and how they appear different to different people. Each chapter alternates between Min's present point of view and Yu-jin's in the past, showing Yu-jin's journey from small town to Seoul, and her discovery of more than that path her parents set out for her. Her relationship with her roommate So-ra is particularly important, and seeing glimpses of the ways that Yu-jin puts up different barriers and acts with different people highlights her longing for yet inability to do and be exactly as she wants. Min stays fairly mysterious, even more of an outsider in the city and discovering he wasn't even really aware of everything going on in his relationship, but also making friends with Yu-jin's Japanese roommate.

The main characters all show different kinds of outsiders in Seoul, also depicting a lot of the city with an outsider's perspective as well, and the book explores ideas of how people manage being an outsider and where cultures do or don't have room for it. The narrative unfolds slowly, less of a fast paced mystery than a slow unfolding of layers. It would have been quite different if it was just from Min's perspective, more focused on a mystery of power and secrets, but the inclusion of Yu-jin's point of view as well makes for more of a melancholic tone, seeing a character find joys beyond her family's plans and expectations, but not know how to include them in her future. The characters' relationship to time, particularly to thinking about present and future, brings out something interesting, with Seoul seeming to represent a present for both Min and Yu-jin that they don't quite seem to see beyond.

When We Fell Apart is a slow burn kind of mystery that focuses on character relationships and perspectives, more of a literary look at outsiders in Seoul than the thriller-esque pursuit of the truth suggested in some ways by the blurb. It builds up an intriguing picture of characters who seem to purposefully only see things in certain ways and their ties to each other.

What a stunning book! I loved the writing and there were so many moments where it broke my heart. I can't wait to read more by this author.

This was such a poignant and atmopsheric read that kept me engaged and swept me along in its pages. I liked the writing, the characters and the storyline and i found the setting so well described with vivid imagery. I really enjoyed reading this book.

when we fell apart is essentially about the mystery of min's (our korean american main character) girlfriend yu jin who reportedly died because of a suicide attempt in her apartment. min, who didn't think yu jin was capable and had any reasons to kill herself, think there was more to her death than the police had let on.

at first, from the blurb, i really thought this was going to be just about the mystery surrounding yu jin's death, but soon i realized that this book was more than that. we follow 2 perspective here - from min in third person as he tries to uncover what happened to yu jin and also as he tries to deal with the grief that he was left with, and also from yu jin in first as she recounted her story from the beginning of her time in seoul until her death. the two different perspectives we've gotten here for me was interesting to say the least because of how different the two paths are so i was curious about how these two paths will intersect later on in the stories. nevertheless, it made the story more gripping and interesting.

i loved the exploration of acceptance, identity, and family expectations in this. yu jin's story is more about her life, about how she wanted to become free of her family's expectations towards her but also wanting for them to accept her, about how she feels suffocated by her loved ones. i also loved the gorgeous wriiting of modern seoul, and i think the setting of this book was just a pleasant addition for the mystery as a whole.

the ending was also satisfying enough to me, although i would honestly love to see more explanation on min's background as well. i think there was so much that could be explored from min's part.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

When We Fell Apart is the debut novel of Soon Wiley.

It is told in alternating chapters from two perspectives of two characters, Min and Yu-jin, both of whom have come to Seoul in search of something.

Min was born in America of a Korean mother (whose parents emigrated to the US pre WW2) and an American father, now separated from his family. In America, Min never quite fell he belonged, and has come to Korea, working for Samsung (where he advises Korean businesspeople on US culture), only loosely attached to the ex-pat community:

"No matter where he went, people couldn’t put their finger on him, puzzling over his ambiguous origins. Tolerance was what Min practiced whenever he spent time with expats. It was the trade‑ off for getting to play rugby, getting hit. They were a lost bunch anyway, the expats. ESL teachers, ex‑military, burnout backpackers, forty‑year‑old nothings with penchants for Asian women, these were the types of foreign men in Korea. Min considered himself different from them, somehow special, here for a reason. Biracial, Los Angeles–bred Samsung consultants were the exception in Seoul, something Min took pride in.

He was here because of ancestry, because he’d never seen the country whose language he spoke, because he’d never felt wholly American, because in the snuggest kernel of his heart, he hoped to find some sense of belonging."

Yu-jin, whose section is narrated in the first person, ending when Min's begins, was brought up in Gyeryong (계룡시) a small military town, but as her narration opens in aiming for admission to the prestiguous women's university 이대, or to give it its full name 이화여자대학교 (Ewha Womans University).

"Our eyes were on the prize, unflinching: gaining admittance to a university in Seoul. For those with even loftier goals, SKY (Seoul National University, Korea University, or Yonsei University) was the ultimate— admittance to any one of the three instantaneously setting you on a course for financial, social, and marital success. College wasn’t just the next logical step. It was the foundation upon which your entire adult life was built. It was everything. Slip up on a test at school, mess around during night classes at hagwon, or, worst of all, bomb the College Scholastic Ability Test— there went your future, all your hopes and dreams gone in an instant, every future self you’d ever imagined, vanished.

I had plans of my own. Or, I should say, my family had made plans for me: Ewha Womans University. It was my mother’s alma mater, one of Seoul’s most prestigious schools, and an all‑ girls one at that, something my father particularly approved of. But more than the promise of Ewha’s rigorous education, more than its vaunted postgraduation connections, more than the alluring prospect of escaping my parents’ house, more than anything, I wanted to be in Seoul, in the center of it all. As long as I was there, somewhere in that city, I knew everything would work itself out."

Yu-jin indeed gains entry to Ewha, although rather to her surprise her family also move to Seoul, her conservative, nationalistic and fiercely ambitious father taking up a prestiguous governmental post as Minister of Defence. She persuades him to let her live out, sharing a house with two other Ewha students, So-ra (from Busan) and a Japanese student, Misaki. Towards the end of her university course she meets Min at a noraebang (rather oddly the book refers to it as karaoke) and the two start dating.

We learn very early on that Yu-jin is dead, of suspected suicide, leaving Min bereft and confused. And in her first person account we also soon learn, although Min is entirely ignorant of this, that So-ra was, and indeed still is, her lover.

The story that follows has, going forward, Min trying to unravel the reasons behind Yu-jin's death (which he initially refuses to believe is suicide), while Yu-jin's own account shows us what actually lead to the fateful events. At times this part of the story strays a little too far into 'murder-mystery' type territory for my taste, with Yu-jin's father, also in search of the truth, bugging Min's phone and having him trailed by his men, while Min is passed information by a Detective assigned to the case.

And the more mundate, but harrowing, truth of Yu-jin's despair is a little diminished in force by the key revelation - her secret relationship with So-ra - being revealed very early in the novel (hence this isn't a spoiler).

The novel was for me at its strongest in its description of the city Seoul, almost another character in the novel. It has to be said my normal reading in Korean literature is of books written originally in Korean, and this is very different to those, with much more exposition that a Korean reader would need (or indeed I have to say I needed), although this is justified given that Min, Yu-jin, So-ra and Misaki are all outsiders who have come to Seoul seeking something, and it is very evocatively done. For example (and note the exposition added in brackets):

"This was Seoul’s counterculture —something Min had only heard about, never seen — churning and writhing like some pissed‑off beast. It was a world away from the silent commuter metro rides, the suits and ties, the pencil skirts, the astronomical academic expectations, the conscription, the soju, the plastic surgery, the DMZ. These were the rebels, rejecting the patriarchy, the gender pay gap. This was their collective rage against a society and country that demanded perfection, filial piety, and allegiance; rage against the demilitarized zone just thirty‑five miles north, running like a jagged scar across their country, cut by milky‑faced foreign ministers in Berlin; rage that they still carried this burden, so many years later (all able‑bodied men required to defend South Korea for two years, forming one of the largest standing armies in the world). This was their rallying cry, their lament."

Overall, a novel I found more interest for its evocation of one of my favourite cities, but a little over-dramatic in terms of the main plot. 2.5 stars

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was not what I expected it to be but kept me coming back to it to try and tiptoe my way through the story. The narrative is split between two characters, alternating the point of view in each chapter. Initially, it seems like a romance/relationship story and my initial thoughts were that the narrative reminded me a little of Gone Girl. This quickly changes however as the narratives move to different times and we witness different elements of the relationship from the points of view of the main characters as Min tries to establish the circumstances of his girlfriend’s death.
The story kept me reading and the additional theme of feeling like an outsider from the points of view of the different characters was thought provoking. The setting description was rich and gave a real feeling of Seoul as a vibrant and modern city.
I found it really difficult to like the main female character although I did feel the author allowed us to understand her and gave an insight into the Korean psyche. I did feel empathy for her, but I really warmed to her Japanese room mate and found her sections had a great deal of warmth.