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The New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Story of Mina Lee returns with a timely and surprising new novel about a family’s search for answers following the disappearance of their mother.

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, Anastasia and Ronald, 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 about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.

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 a riveting page-turner and moving family story, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, hus­bands and wives. It is the story of one unforgettable family’s search for home when all seems lost, and a powerful meditation on identity, migration, and what it means to dream in America.

through 1982 / 95 pages (24%)

(view spoiler)[Sunny's life as she's having children and trying to settle breaks my heart. her husband doesn't value her and she is failing to see value in herself
and she's alone without her family. I can't imagine how scary that could be

and then the 1990's - when there mom is missing and this strange man has appeared deceased in their backyard. I wonder who this is - why he used her library card and how he previously knew her. Why did he choose their backyard to go to? when she isn't there?
and where did their mom go?

interesting how unfriendly his daughter is (hide spoiler)]

You are flying through your books! :)

Trying to get through these Netgalley and BOTM books!

through 1999 / 218 pages / (56%)

Wow, this just became a double type of mystery!
(view spoiler)[ so we have the missing mom but now we also know RJ was watching the cops and finding out things about them. they were so threatened they got him fired

could it have been tied to the guy who showed up at their house? or the guy they went and visited?
is that who was following them?!?! Yikes!

and Sunny sounds so lonely. the fact that she found RJ again is so heartwarming but I hate that she was so alone. that line about her family having to figure out life without her if she disappeared because she would just be gone - it gives me hope that maybe she is still alive - but I worry she isn't. Is RJ storing stuff the reason either of them are gone? is the family still in danger? is it still there!?!?

and the kids were just really letting their dad have it! Yikes. but I don't blame them. there is so much frustration and anger all around. (hide spoiler)]

through 1998 / pg 295 (74 %)

(view spoiler)[ RJ's story is heartbreaking - that they took so much from him because he knew something bad was happening. him being homeless and not finding his daughter is just so sad. And RJ's PTSD is just as heartbreaking - I wish he'd been able to get help.

and Sunny - how she was getting more in her life and yet, there was so much she'd given up to get there. They still didn't see her

surprising that the boxes are still giving the kids trouble. The way Hendrix talked about the evidence with the kids was troubling. It makes it seem like Sunny might have been hurt because of what she had
and that RJ was hurt for the same reason. I wonder what's in there. . . (hide spoiler)]

and done

wow, I loved this one!

(view spoiler)[ I saw so sad - I never believed their father attacked RJ but he did. And the cops exploiting families and hurting/killing women! OMG!

and I was so sad that their dad passed from that struggle! but I was glad he saved his kids.

and wow, the fact that the mom was calling for so many years, sending letters - and he destroyed them and didn't speak to her when she called. . .

I loved that feeling of community in the end. the thought that they may have the book and would be able to fight the police that were hurting people.

and OMG the mom showing up in the end. Ugh, so good!! (hide spoiler)]