Friday Rec: American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Some books you finish and immediately want to press into someone's hands. This is one of those.

Nine years after Pachinko, Min Jin Lee is back, and we loved every one of these 656 pages.

The Kohs were comfortably middle class in Seoul. John had a respectable job, Helen kept the family steady, and their three children, Bo, DH, and Mido, had bright futures ahead. Then John's oldest friend betrays him, and a few years later the 1997 Asian financial crisis knocks the ground out from under them all.

The family leaves Seoul for Sydney and eventually settles in Southern California. There the parents find that their experience and education count for very little, and they take whatever work they can to keep their children on track. The one belief they never let go of is that education will carry the next generation to safety.

A hagwon is a Korean after-school cram academy, and in this novel it's where everything collides: ambition and exhaustion, love and obligation, the dreams parents hold for their kids and the ones the kids are still figuring out for themselves.

What we loved most is how Lee moves between the sweeping and the intimate. The story travels through churches and nail salons, law firms and fried-fish shops, cramped apartments and gated communities, and the smallest gesture can change a life years later. Every character is trying to do right by someone, and you feel the weight of every sacrifice.

If Pachinko stayed with you, or if you love a big, absorbing family saga to carry you through the season, this is your weekend read. Pour something warm, find a quiet corner, and settle in.