What a great book! I couldn't put it down, and I look forward to this author's next book (this was her first). The protagonist, Casey, is the daughter of Korean immigrants, and after graduation from Princeton she finds her self without a clear plan for her future. She leaves home due to conflicts with her father, and struggles throughout the book with family issues, money, career, love, and friends. The book offers a good view of the Korean American community, as well. I just lent it to a friend, but will post it if I get it back.

I started this book and was really enjoying it, but mid-way through it I started to get really bored. The story just seemed to muddle along and it appeared that there was going to be no climax to the story. Consequently I got tired of it and skimmed and didn't really finish the last third of the book. I do like the authors style of writing, I just think the book is just a little longer than is necessary.

Nice insight into the tradition of Korean family life. Interesting but a little long winded. I dont know what could have been cut but it was engaging.

This book was so interesting I ended up reading it twice. The female protagonist has a much different mindset then any your typical and delving into her character alone is worth reading the book for. Another thing that makes this book stand out is that the viewpoint of all the character's in the book are all almost equally expressed and with such deftness. While, of course, this has been done before I have rarely seen anyone so adept at dong so and exploring so many sides of a thing. You get that a lot of this is personal to the author which makes it even more remarkable.

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Great book about the struggle second generation/1.5 generation Korean Americans go through dealing with the traditional Korean culture their immigrant parents want and expect of them while at the same time dealing with American cultural norms as well. Loved the book!

Casey Han is a Korean immigrant who grew up in Queens. She faces many of the same problems of other immigrants -- fitting into a new culture -- as well as some that even native children face – clashes with her parent’s expectations versus her own desires. But there are things about Casey that aren’t obvious – like the fact that every day she reads a Bible passage, writes it down and contemplates it. She also likes to make hats and devotes quite a bit of time to learning the craft.

Her parents work in a dry cleaning business with hopes of seeing their two daughters succeed. Her sister, Tina, is going to become a surgeon, and Casey, who has just earned her Bachelors in Economics from Princeton, is expected to study law or at the very least, go to business school (B-School.) Neither option appeals to Casey.

After a terrible fight, her father kicks her out of the family home and Casey heads over to her white boyfriend’s apartment to stay with him. A boyfriend that her parents do not know about and would not approve of because he is not Korean.

She arrives at her boyfriend’s apartment to find him actively engaged in a ménage-a-trois. She leaves there and spends the evening in a high-end hotel that she really can’t afford.

The next day, she runs into a Korean-immigrant acquaintance from her church, Ella, and learns that Ella has always desired a close friendship with her and when Ella learns that Casey needs a place to live; she invites Casey to live with her until she figures out what she wants to do.

Throughout her journey, Casey has many people who act as benefactors in her life – Ella; her sister, Tina, who gives her money the day she is kicked out of her home; Sabine, her boss at the job she worked through college and during the story; her bosses at the investment bank where she eventually lands a job; a used bookseller who befriends her, etc.

Each of these people tries to help Casey and she is not always as receptive as you would expect to their assistance. Especially since she seems to consistently be making decisions that work against her best interests, mostly financially. She runs up huge debts buying expensive clothes, meals out, etc.

As Casey struggles to adjust to life in America as an adult, her friends and family also go through the same struggles. Some of the struggles come from conforming to the cultural expectations: Ella marries Ted, who is also the son of Korean immigrants, but their marriage fails; her sister Tina marries a Korean man but chooses to become an epidemiologist rather than a surgeon and this greatly upsets her father who has told everyone his daughter will be a surgeon; her mother is raped by the music director at her church, but blames herself for the rape. (I, personally, love how Casey gets back at him for the rape when she finds out about it.)

This is one book, where there were many times that I found the protagonist to be a bit of a twit – especially when she consistently goes on spending sprees for clothing when she has other bills to pay. But, she is struggling for her place in a culture that she understands but her parents don’t. She sees her non-Korean counterparts doing what they want to do with their lives and getting support from their families, but she doesn’t get that.

I felt that it brought forth many of the struggles that immigrants face as they try to integrate their lives and values into a society that often does not mirror their lives and values.

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