When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the debut novel of the author (and full disclosure: the author was my son’s favorite high school English teacher).
Reading this novel is like peeling an onion–you think you know what’s happened and what’s going to happen, but then you peel off a layer of the story and another layer appears, giving a different angle and additional depth to the story.
The story takes place in Seoul and is about a search for identity and belonging and what those two words mean to a person who appears to have both but has neither and to a person who thinks they have neither but actually has both. The journey by the main characters is a journey of continuing revelation about the façades people erect about themselves and others and what happens when those façades are torn away.
This is a stunning debut novel, and the themes of identity and belonging are universal and resonate, no matter the setting. I can’t wait to read the author’s next book, and I highly recommend this one!




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