The Last Story of Mina Lee

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim 384 pages

First-time novelist Nancy Jooyoum Kim tackles some tough subjects in this novel: the power of language, immigration, death and the meanings of family and home.

Margot Lee has lived in Portland, Oregon, for the last few years while her mother, Mina, lives in Los Angeles. Her friend, Miguel, is moving to LA and Margot offers to drive him.  She plans to surprise her mother, but in reality, she is going to check up on her. Mina hasn’t answered the phone in two weeks.  Upon their arrival, Margot and Miguel find Mina dead in her Koreantown apartment.

Margot feel guilty that she didn’t follow up sooner, but the two weren’t close, yet they weren’t estranged. Margot hated talking to her mother as her mother spoke mostly Korean, but Margot barely speaks that language so phone communication is strained at best. Although Mina appears to have died from natural causes and the police do not suspect foul play, Margot has an intuition that murder is more likely and begins to look into her mother’s life.

The story alternates between 1987, when Mina came into the United States as an illegal immigrant, and 2014, the time of Mina’s death.  The 1987 version is told from Mina’s point of view, while the 2014 is from Margot’s.

The plot is rather slow-moving, but I enjoyed it. As Margot digs, she learns Mina’s secrets, rather shocking secrets that were the highlights of the novel.  I believe that Author Kim did this on purpose---while the secrets are nothing that hasn’t happened to others before, the slowness of the plot makes them stand out.

There were lots of mentions of Korean food and other words that I could never really figure out what exactly Author Kim meant. That also slowed the plot a bit. Every time I thought this would be a 3-star book, a secret was revealed elevating it to a 5-star read.  Therefore, The Last Story of Mina Lee receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.