“Unfolds in New York in the 1990s with an energetic eventfulness and a sprawling cast that call to mind the literary classics of Victorian England…It would be remarkable if she had simply written a long novel that was as easy to devour as a nineteenth-century romance—packed with tales of flouted parental expectations, fluctuating female friendships and rivalries, ephemeral (and longer-lasting) romantic hopes and losses, and high-stakes career gambles. But Lee intensifies her drama by setting it against an unfamiliar backdrop: the tightly knit social world of Korean immigrants, whose children strive to blend into their American foreground without clashing with their distinctive background. It’s a feat of coordination and contrast that could kill a chameleon, but Lee pulls if off with conviction.”—New York Times Book Review