The Apology
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3.0 • 16 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This “sweeping intergenerational saga" tells the story of a pampered and defiant South Korean matriarch thrust into the afterlife from which she seeks a second chance to make amends (Kirstin Chen)—and fights off a tragic curse that could devastate generations to come.
In South Korea, a 105-year-old woman receives a letter. Ten days later, she has been thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come.
Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sent her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she was simply doing what was needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that decades later, this decision would return to haunt her—threatening to tear apart her bond with her beloved son, her relationship with her infuriatingly insolent sisters, and the future of the family she has worked so hard to protect?
Part ghost story and part family epic, The Apology is an incisive tale of sisterhood and diaspora, reaching back to the days of Japanese colonialism and the Korean War, and told through the singular voice of a defiant, funny, and unforgettable centenarian.
Paperback includes a Reading Group Guide, Jimin Han's family recipes, and a conversation with the author
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APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Reputation comes first in this arresting drama about an elderly Korean woman dealing with her past. After 105 years of upholding her family’s honor, Jeonga Cha has just passed on. Now she must relive her life through memories and undo the damage she accidentally caused through her well-intentioned but misguided actions. Jimin Han’s second novel is literally haunting, with scenes of Jeonga’s life and afterlife alternating in the story. We loved her as a main character, with her no-nonsense attitude, stubborn pride, and acid tongue. However, her flaws speak to deeper truths, personal sacrifices, and heartbreaking memories smoldering beneath her cool disposition. Brilliantly, we get to see how many of Jeonga’s choices are linked to family secrets and Korea’s cultural history—particularly its occupation by Japan and the war that split the country in two. The Apology is a life-affirming story about finding family and making amends.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Han (A Small Revolution) delivers an uneven ghost story involving a Korean matriarch's interventions before and after her death. During the Korean War, widow Jeonga Cha's 15-year-old son, Gwangmu, impregnates his teacher's 16-year-old sister, Hayun. Jeonga, worried the news would bring scandal to her family, arranges for Hayun and the baby to settle in the U.S. She continues raising Gwangmu in Seoul until he leaves for school in Chicago, then reconnects with Hayun. In the present, when Jeonga is 105, she discovers Gwangmu and Hayun's granddaughter Ellery is about to marry Jordan, a great-grandson of Jeonga's long-estranged older sister Seona. (Neither Ellery nor Jordan knows they're related, and Jeonga doesn't know whether Seona is still alive.) Jeonga hastens from Seoul to the U.S., to visit Hayun and Ellery in San Francisco and Jordan in Ohio, hoping to stop the wedding. Then, while in Chicago to visit another relative, she is struck by a bus and killed. Awaking in the afterlife, Jeonga is desperate for a "second chance," and attempts to reconcile with various family members. The novel sags from a few too many side plots, but the feisty and misanthropic Jeonga is a captivating narrator ("I hated people. They had always been terrible"; "You think old ladies can't run? We certainly can"). Though bloated, this tragicomedy has its charms.
Customer Reviews
Not my cup of tea.
I had trouble keeping interested in this story, I tried, just kept loosing track and finally finished, but so plodding and slow. I just could not enjoy this book. Someone else may love it.