“Can you imagine failing at New York so publicly that you have to ‘move home’?” He does twitchy little scare quotes around the last bit. I draw in a deep breath of caramelized onion. Jeremy’s the only one eating a full-on meal here at Léon. “Mortifying.” He shudders, blotting his slick mouth with a black cloth napkin. Then again, someone once described Jeremy’s energy to me as human cocaine, and they were definitely right. Jeremy says I’m obsessed with other women. “I got them here,” she tells me in faultless English. She smiles with such indulgent kindness I feel worse. “I like your boots,” I tell her, needing her to know that I know, and immediately hating myself for it. Her boots are Ann Demeulemeester, the ones with hundreds of yards of lace, and her ragged men’s jacket, Comme. Her name is Rae and when she offers her cold, large hand, I instinctively search her face for any hint of cosmetic surgery. She has shimmering lavender hair and wide-set, vacant eyes. He whose arm is clamped around the back of the café chair that belongs to another girl. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her.įlung together by circumstance, housing woes, and family secrets, will the sisters learn more about each other than they’re willing to confront? And what if while helping June, Jayne has to confront the fact that maybe she’s sick, too? Excerptĭepending on where I focus and how much pressure I apply to the back of my throat, I can just about blot him out. Once thick as thieves, these sisters who moved from Seoul to San Antonio to New York together now don’t want anything to do with each other.

Jayne is an emotionally stunted, self-obsessed basket case who lives in squalor, has egregious taste in men, and needs to get to class and stop wasting Mom and Dad’s money (if you ask June).

June’s three years older, a classic first-born, know-it-all narc with a problematic finance job and an equally soulless apartment (according to Jayne). Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters and how far they’ll go to save one of their lives-even if it means swapping identities.

New York Times bestselling author Mary H.K. “Sneaks up on you with its insight and poignancy.” - Entertainment WeeklyFrom

Yolk mary choi