Dorothy Anderson

There is lots to like about this book, especially the author's struggle with maintaining her Korean identity in anticipation of her mother's death. The descriptions of her relationships with her parents felt real and unguarded, and I also liked the scenes with her mother's family in Seoul and her descriptions of Korean food (to a point). But ultimately, I found the author to be an intolerably self-absorbed narrator, who felt the need to share every detail of her thoughts and actions with only occasional insights and movement towards maturity. And why was she so down on her father?? He was far from perfect, but didn't seem to deserve her shoddy treatment of him. I wish she could go back to that dinner in Vietnam and realize that he did nothing unforgivable.