The Apology

by Jimin Han

This sweeping intergenerational saga tells the story of a pampered and defiant South Korean matriarch thrust into the afterlife from which she seeks a second chance to make amends — and fights off a tragic curse that could devastate generations to come. In South Korea, a 105-year-old woman receives a letter. Ten days later, she has been thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come.
 
Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sent her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she was simply doing what was needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that decades later, this decision would return to haunt her — threatening to tear apart her bond with her beloved son, her relationship with her infuriatingly insolent sisters, and the future of the family she has worked so hard to protect?
 
Part ghost story and part family epic, The Apology is an incisive tale of sisterhood and diaspora, reaching back to the days of Japanese colonialism and the Korean War, and told through the singular voice of a defiant, funny, and unforgettable centenarian.

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Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, Historical

291 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2023

About the author

Jimin Han was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island; Dayton, Ohio; and Jamestown, New York. Her work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts. She is the author of The Apology and A Small Revolution. Additional writing of hers can be found online at American Public Media's Weekend America, Poets & Writers, and Catapult, among others. She teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Pace University, and community writing centers. She lives outside New York City with her husband and children.

Reviews

[Taylor Reid]

Decades after sending her daughter-in-law to America, Jeonga Cha is grappling with the domino effect her actions have created. Unraveling this tangled family history through imaginative dimensions, you won't be able to put this moving saga down.

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

A letter meant for her older sister Mina compels 105-year-old Jeonga Cha to reflect upon her past and make hasty plans to travel to the United States. Decades ago, Jeonga made a decision in the interest of her family’s reputation, sending her only son’s illegitimate child and the child’s mother to the United States – a fact that she has kept a secret from her sisters. Jeonga is the youngest of four sisters. One of her sisters, Seona, eloped with her lover and settled in North Korea, and she has not seen or heard from her in over eighty-nine years. Much has transpired in her life since then, but Jeonga has remained set in her ways. But when that decision from the past comes back to haunt her and potentially impact the lives of both her and Seona’s branches of the family, she knows that she has to take charge of the situation, right her wrongs and take responsibility for her actions. But after reaching the United States with two of her older sisters and her assistant Chohui. she meets with a fatal accident before she can share her secret and the narrative follows Jeonga as she tries to find a way to communicate with her loved ones from the afterlife.

Spanning several decades and revolving around themes of family, sisterhood, secrets, self-acceptance and forgiveness, The Apology by Jimin Han combines historical fiction and intergenerational family drama with elements of surrealism and a good dose of humor. The narrative is presented from Jeonga’s first–person perspective. I loved the premise of this novel and I found the protagonist and her sisters to be interesting characters. The bickering and banter made for some entertaining reading. The promise of a story with a centenarian main character and her family set during the Korean War was enticing. However, despite the promising premise and interesting cast of characters, I did not enjoy this novel as much as I expected. A deeper exploration of the historical context and the impact of the Korean War on the lives of Jeonga’s family was missing and I found the writing to be a tad choppy with the transitions between past and present timelines abrupt, which messed with the flow of the story as did the uneven pacing. The afterlife segment of the narrative is well - written and I appreciated the humor the author injects into the narrative as we follow Jeonga as she tries to communicate with her loved ones. Overall, while I was entertained and appreciated the underlying message of this story, I wasn’t quite invested in the characters and the unraveling of the secret as it is gradually revealed to us wasn’t quite compelling as it was initially made out to be. Having said that, I do feel the author has promise and would be eager to read more of Jimin Han’s work in the future.

Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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[Terrie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Apology by Jimin Han is a Blend of Historical and Literary Fiction mixed with Magical Realism!

South Korean Jeonga Cha is the one-hundred-five-year-old protagonist who narrates this story from the afterlife...

Jeonga Cha's backstory is complicated, lengthy, and heavy with characters who are mostly family. She decides she's the one who should take responsibility for upholding the family name, doing what she must, and all the while seemingly angry for the onus she's placed on herself.

Now, a decision Jeonga made decades ago has taken an unanticipated turn and threatens to rip apart the bonds with those most important to her and impact the future of her family...

The Apology has all the sounds of a story that I would love. Part ghost story, part family story: Yes, please!

No one is more surprised than I am that this book didn't work for me...

I found the character of Jeonga Cha difficult and decided she wasn't someone I would choose to sit down with to chat and sip tea. I imagine a centenarian to be mature and possess more wisdom than this character exhibited. I viewed her as extremely rigid and noisy, and her agitated and contrary disposition didn't resonate with me.

I was expecting a descriptive and beautiful writing style but what I found was overly simplistic, with sentences that were too short, and time jumps that disrupted the structure and flow of the story.

The Apology cover art is beautiful and I did enjoy learning about the connection of the persimmon within the story. I love the inclusion of this detail as it's a small delight I look for and don't often find.

This was an immersion read using a physical ARC and an Audible audiobook narrated by Kathleen Kim who did a great job of voicing the many characters.

The Apology is a multi-generational story about forgiveness and atonement that I thought I would love. I know not every book is for everyone and I discovered this one was not for me.

2.75⭐

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company, and Jimin Han for a physical ARC of this book through Shelf Awareness Pro giveaway. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

[Desiree Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE GOOD: Our centenarian leading lady is a hoot! And learning about her Korean culture was enjoyable.

THE BAD: The introductory section is written in very choppy, short sentences that created a stressful atmosphere that almost made me abandon the book very early. The post-death portions seem like a different book than the scenes from when our main character was alive. Pretty disjointed.

CONCLUSION: Enjoyable, but not the all-consuming masterpiece the reviews lead one to believe.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really full and well-balanced book, a range of emotions and tones from farce to high drama to surrealism. Would make a great book club pick, one of those books you could recommend to a wide variety of readers.

Our narrator, Jeonga, is 105 years old and you are going to have to give this book a little bit of grace that she seems in better health than most people half her age. (While she talks about being old often, it is not as much as you'd think and mostly minor things when it comes to her physical state.) At the very beginning of the book she dies suddenly and we get much of the book in flashback as she considers how she got to this point. Gradually we learn about the family secrets she is keeping, her tumultuous relationship with her two sisters, and her long sadness and resentment towards her third sister who left the family and eloped in North Korea decades earlier who they haven't seen since.

It is crucial that Jeonga narrate this story because if anyone else told it you would hate Jeonga. She is critical, often callous. She isn't kind or thoughtful towards those around her. She is set in her ways and hates to admit fault. But because Jeonga is our narrator we come to like her quite a lot. When she is the narrator, she's actually pretty hilarious. We see just how much what Jeonga thinks is different from what she says, how much she hides and keeps inside. We get to see her vulnerability when no one else does.

The only real flaw this book has is that the one thing Jeonga cares about, the one thing she must stop, is, well, not a big deal. I'm sorry but marrying your third cousin isn't that weird! You're not that closely related! It was never clear to me why Jeonga cares so much about this wedding not happening. This makes the end a bit off for me, though in most other ways it was surprisingly satisfying given that our protagonist is dead. In fact, the ghostly Jeonga's antics and her attempts to make contact with the living are some of the best parts, though tonally they're wildly different from the rest of the book.

It's not the most cohesive narrative in tone or structure but I really didn't care. I enjoyed myself very much. I listened to this on audio, and recommend that format.

[Liberty {LittyLibby} · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rode this roller coaster of family secrets and regrets, feeling such empathy and sadness for our main character, a curmudgeonly centenarian who desperately needs to make things right. Yes, she's hard and demanding and prideful and rude and cold and everything that makes you hate your mean great auntie...
But there are reasons, and I love digging to the bottom of someone's meanness to discover what broke their heart.

[Helen | readwithneleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hak Jeonga is 105 years old and suffers no fools. The youngest of four sisters, Jeonga had always felt like she was doing what her father would’ve wanted her to do—uphold the family’s reputation, no matter the cost. So when she receives a letter that could ruin what she’s worked her whole life for, she moves quickly. And as a result, she is met with an untimely death during her visit to the U.S. It is when she is in the space between life and death that she realizes the gravity of her actions to protect her family’s secrets. In the afterlife, she must reckon with the past, the decisions she made, and the consequences of her actions.

Immediately, we learn that Jeonga, our sammonim, is exactly that — a rich, snooty, and very proudful sammonim who has little patience for foolishness, or rather, little patience for anything. Her candor and self-righteousness reminded me of all the dreadful Korean mother-in-laws you see in Korean dramas. And I loved every bit of it. But as Jeonga’s tone was sharp and commanding in the world of the living, her voice in the afterlife was like that of a whining child. A child that’s been desperately waiting and searching for her favorite sister, Seona. Lost and exasperated, Jeonga must learn to move through the afterlife if she wants to right her wrongs, pay penance, and atone. Her death and afterlife being the last apology she can offer. Despite Jeonga’s irritating tone, her time in the afterlife was one of my favorite parts of the book. The window into the beyond, and our ties to it, were fascinating to see (and also explains the persimmon on the cover).

More than my fascination with the afterlife, what I loved about Han’s depiction of Jeonga’s purgatory was how much of Korea’s two prevalent cultural factors were loaded in its pages. The first is one that most readers of Korean literature or consumers of Korean media are familiar with—han. In the book, han, fueled by the trauma from years of oppression and war, including the forced separation of families, is never raging in Jeonga, but rather smoldering underneath the resentment, lies and secrets. Never visible, but ever so present. The second, chae myun, is also deeply rooted in Korean culture and goes back thousands of years to the days of Confucianism and the rise of social classes in pre-modern Korea. It means to save face. And we see the price Jeonga pays to uphold her family’s chae myun. It is an obvious theme to the book, but the nuances and how it applies to a Korean family is what I appreciated the most. Familial sacrifice, especially when saving face, in Korean culture is so deeply ingrained. It is a given.
.
The book moves fast and Jeonga, ever the entertaining and spirited MC, always kept me on my toes. It was a nice surprise given that when I first started THE APOLOGY, I had to immediately put it down. Because the manner in which the MC dies in the beginning was so specifically triggering to me, I had to step away for a bit. Once I came back to it, I was so glad I did because this was absolutely a joy to read. Jeonga was both funny and infuriating, and I loved her. And I loved that this book exists. A book that grapples generational trauma and familial sacrifice but with wit, humor and tenderness.

Thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC!

[sureena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-ARC copy!

The Apology follows Jeonga Cha, a 105-year-old woman in South Korea that is forced to reckon with her past after a life-changing letter arrives in the mail from a distant relative in America.

The book certainly starts with a bang. We follow our protagonist in the last moments of her life and then in her emergence in the afterlife. It is in this plane between life and death that Jeonga is finally able to look back on her life and the series of choices that led her to the events of the prior few days in which the consequences of her actions have finally caught up to her.

From there, we travel back in time through Jeonga's memories to unearth every secret and mistake that Jeonga must confront.

With a premise as intriguing as that, I was hooked from the first page. I really enjoyed the theme of reflection and how the nonlinear timeline played into it – it reminded me of another novel that I enjoyed: Paradise of the Blind. Similar to that story, The Apology details the legacy of one family over multiple generations, paying special attention to its female members. The women in this story certainly stand out most. Jeonga herself, her sisters (particularly Seona, who was exiled from her family when she eloped with husband and moved to North Korea), Chohui, Joyce, Hayan, and more. I really enjoyed learning about each character and their various stories – Han really succeeding in developing an interesting cast of characters, all with their own personalities and nuances.

I also really enjoyed the themes of this novel and how it explored the concept of familial sacrifice and internal atonement. However, at the end of the day, I just felt that the message Han was aiming to convey came off as a bit on-the-nose sometimes, particularly with the whole afterlife concept. There's a whole sequence toward the end of the novel where Jeonga is building up to understanding the extent of her mistakes and it just feels a bit heavy-handed. My enjoyment admittedly waned at that point.

In a similar vein, I kind of expected the book to go deeper on the subject and really take advantage of the storyline's potential. There was a lot of opportunity here to really unpack the repercussions and consequences of the past and how culture played into all of it, but I feel like not all of that potential was ever unlocked.

Han is a talented writer though, very clearly adept in prose and style, and I think she too has a lot of potential when it comes to any future works. I have not read her debut but I have no doubt that this sophomore novel shows a lot of evolution in craft and that her next will show the same.

Overall, I enjoyed this and I think people who love multi-generational stories following complicated families and complicated characters will appreciate this story of many layers. If any of that sounds interesting to you, the person who is currently reading this review for whatever reason, keep an eye out for the novel when it releases on August 1st!

[Anmiryam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acerbic, finicky, clearsighted about everything except herself, Cha Jeonga is an entertaining, and irritating, 105-year old narrator for this novel of family secrets and the damage they wreak through generations. Her madcap attempts keep the errors of the past from ruining the future, as misguided and farcical as they are, never obscure the true pain and good intentions that motivate her. Jeonga's bull in a china shop approach to life is embarrassing at times, but you see what she does not -- truth, not secrecy is the solution. Her story proves that emotional growth, change, and redemption can come at any age, and in fiction at least, transcend life itself.

Plus, she's got great taste in design. How many novels name check Finn Juhl in the first chapter!

[johnny ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

nothing like stopping an incest wedding, huh?

[Marcia Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Apology is such a delightful story, a journey that offered me the chance to think about my own past and my future, and to hope that all of us might be lucky enough to try to make amends for past deeds. As Jeonga Cha travels from South Korea and across the USA, we are with her every step of the way. The ghosts of her past are travelling with her and with us. Time is of the essence and the tension is palpable. Somehow Jeonga Cha keeps herself (and us) calm until the incredibly fulfilling ending. Well done!

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

a genuinely touching and frustrating story told from the perspective of someone who should be hatable but ultimately comes off as sympathetic. i hope i can roam around as a ghost when i die.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to four. What a strange little book. Will definitely read more from this author.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely LOVED this big-hearted family drama featuring a group of South Korean sisters in their 100s who travel to America to help two of their younger relatives. Full of regrets, rifts, family secrets, second chances, spirits trapped in the other world and told with tons of wit and humor! Great on audio narrated by Kathleen Kim. This is perfect for fans of authors like Jesse Q. Sutanto. Jimin Han is definitely an author to watch and I can't wait to read what they write next!

[Queralt✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

My hold ended and I'm still struggling with it, but I've read most of it so - it's okay. Just okay.

The grandma is fun and it has interesting bits (her sister being in North Korea) but otherwise, nothing that had an 'oomph' for me.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Apology follows the journey of 105-year-old South Korean Hak Jeonga and her sisters to the United States and beyond. The Hak sisters are extraordinarily long-lived as her two older sisters, Mina and Aera, who accompany her on the trip are 110 and 108 respectively. In the first few pages, Madam Hak divulges that her regret involves hiding her son's 'indiscretion' and I groaned inwardly. The plot contained more makjang than I was expecting so it skewed closer to hackneyed kdrama trope plot than the 'sweeping intergenerational saga' advertised. There are five generations featured, including the sisters' parents.

The depiction of the sprightly centenarian bickering sisters is amusing, comparison of their children's accomplishments and their unique tackling of trip travails. They are missing a sister Seona who they haven't seen or heard from since she eloped to North Korea more than eighty years ago. Madam Hak's other regret and apology involves Seona's son, Daeshim. Her actions back then were motivated by protecting the family's reputation at all costs, believing that's what her father would have wanted.

The Apology is heavily plot-based although the character of Hak Jeonga is quite memorable. Her trusty aide/assistant Chohui would characterize her as difficult to work for. The classicism that she and her sisters exhibit can be shocking. I am ambivalent about the afterlife depiction, which does a strong tie-in to the persimmon on the jacket cover.

All in all, I did enjoy reading this and raced through most of it in one go. However after closing the book, I didn't give further thought to the plight of the characters or their dilemmas. The main concern of Madam Hak and what she is racing to prevent, consanguinity , is actually not that strong a problem. I was expecting a gravitas that wasn't present but once I let go of that expectation, the story was entertaining. 3.4 ⭐️

Thanks to Little, Brown and Co. as well as Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. The publication date of The Apology is 1st August 2023.

[Jess James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was not for me. It started off promising. I was laughing and enjoying the inner thoughts of the main character. But after about 30% of the book, I was really dragging to get there. There were so many characters and lots of storylines, I felt like. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters and when I don't have someone to root for, It is hard to finish the book. I did think the writing was good but overall, I didn't enjoy this one.

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

My blurb speaks for itself but I just wanted to add some stars. Very excited for this novel to reach other readers at last.

[Bella Azam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess you could say don't put too high expectations on something unless you want to be disappointed😬. Sigh, I wished I like this book more than I want to but sadly, this fell flat to me by the 100 pages mark.

A story on intergenerational drama, of sisterhood, the conflicting relationships between families, histories on World war, loss and love. The Apology's narrative started with a letter wrongly sent by a great granddaughter in Ohio to Mina, the eldest sister of the Cha's family but the letter was supposed to be addressed to Jeonga, the youngest sister amongst the four siblings. Jeonga, a 105 year old woman, an influential and wealthy old woman whom at her prime age still quite healthy with the help of her aide, Chohui went to a trip to US with her two older sisters, Mira and Aeran to help their great granddaughter's son that suffered from a tetrible illness. But Jeonga had a secret within her own bloodline, one that concerned the illegitimate family member of her own son, Gwangmu. As they went on the trip to US, Jeonga was hit by a bus and she had to escape the afterlife world to tell the truth to her family

Apologize for the very incoherent synopsis I have wrote as above but thats the gist of the story. Its an interesting premise as I love family drama with secrets and especially one with generational trauma as Jeonga had also dealt with the loss of her older sister, Seona that eloped with her lover over 80 years ago. The twisted backstory of the family tree of Jeonga was a bit wild but sort of expected? We are reading from Jeonga's first POV and you would not believe you are reading from a 105 year old woman cuz she sounded too youngish. I was expecting more on the history of the family like the war they went through or the occupation she suffered from but those are only told on surface level which made the story felt rough to me. There are so many potentials on certain theme of the stories like the strained relationship between a mother and son, husband and wife and sisterhood can be explored more but everything felt brushed off aside with nothing much to add besides being complicated. I dont favour the overused of brand names in Jeonga's outfit to highlight she came from wealthy family that it felt superficial at some point. Plus, the generational family of the Cha's household seems to disperse mostly in America so their Korean roots and culture doesnt seems to be the forefront of the story. I do wished we had more exploration of the family maybe try to reconnect with their identity or whatso but its just my own opinion.

There is the second half of the story where it focused on the spirit world or afterlife where Jeong a wrestled with her memories and the people she me throughout her life and this part was slightly good although it can be fleshed out more. Overall, it was a decent book, just not what I expected of.

Thank you to Times Reads for the review copy in exchange for an honest review

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Korean matriarch narrates this family drama both from this life and the afterlife. Jeong is 105, feisty, small-minded, wealthy, living in a high-rise in Seoul, rarely seeing her two problematic older sisters, alone but for her aide whom she saved as a young girl, still missing her next-oldest sister, Seona, who eloped during the Korean War and ended up in North Korea. Widowed young, when her 15 year old son gets the tutor's sister pregnant, she takes steps to protect the family's reputation, and now those machinations of hers, the secrets she has kept, may have repercussions, involving her great granddaughter and the great grandson of her long-gone sister Seona. When you've got a 105-year-old narrator, there are many generations of family members to contend with and keep straight, and it wasn't always easy to do so. The low stakes that comprise the plot were an issue for me, but the imagined afterlife, following, I think, Korean beliefs, and Jeonga's time in the afterlife in which we learn more about her and the family were interesting. An uneven ghost story that often crawls, but is more compelling before the sisters go traveling to America, and at times when Jeong is in the afterlife attempting to make things right.

[Saraí · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It provided a lot of insight as to intergenerational healing, which I greatly appreciated. I was in awe that the book was so riveting, even though the narrator was (at times) so unlikeable. It felt very realistic. I really liked the description of the afterlife.

[Ranjini Shankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was 3.5 rounded up. It starts out really strong as we follow the main character through her life but I wanted a much bigger, explosive ending as everything comes home to roost and it didn’t quite get there.

The story follows Jeong who has always held on the role of protecting her family’s reputation. She has made hard decisions and sacrifices to fulfill her role but now those same decisions are threatening to tear her family apart. The first part of the book is told by Jeong as she loves her life and the second part is told by her after she dies and is navigating the afterlife.

There are strong themes in the book around making amends when you can, about how much reputation matters, and how much forgiveness can mean. The problem is the story builds up all her questionable decisions and priorities but she never actually has to deal with the real repercussions because she dies and is viewing it from beyond. It somehow takes away the vindication and satisfaction you feel about what is playing out. Also it is really hard to like Jeong, and that’s definitely on purpose, but man it is hard being in her head for long periods of time. The writing is beautiful, the story has a lot of promise and I’ll definitely be back for more from this author.

[jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

sweet and quirky story about familial responsibilities and how to gain forgiveness from past mistakes that were well intended but caused harm for future generations. I wish it had gone deeper into the story a bit more, loved the overall concept

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

105 year-old Jeonga Cha has lived what appears to be an upright, banal life in South Korea. She has her fellow centenarian sisters Aera and Mina as her family, and despite the passing of her husband and her son, still has relatives both near and far in her life. However, when Mina shares with her a letter she's received, asking her to translate the English, Jeonga's carefully constructed life begins to crumble as the secrets she attempted to bury for decades begin to come out.

The story is structured from Jeonga's first person perspective, beginning with her narration from the afterlife as she details what happens over the 10 days following the discovery of the letter. The siblings travel to America as they re-meet relatives and descendents, and Jeonga does her best to cover up her own intentions and actions. There are skips to the past, as we learn the truth behind Jeonga's history, and the reason she so fiercely opposes the marriage between her her great grandniece and her betrothed, who is sick. All of these moments culminate in the present and Mina's eventual passing, when she must come to terms with her actions and atone for them.

While I enjoyed the premise of the novel and the perspective it gave on historical events in South Korea, I really struggled with most of it. The prose is rigid and tense, feeling more like a professional document than a novel, and gives little depth to Jeonga's character and emotions, and the interactions with her sisters were kept to just petty squabbles and bickerings. The pacing is slow and difficult to parse through at times as well; even as someone who prefers character-driven novels over plot-driven ones, the choppiness and jumps across time periods was uneven and the Jeonga post-death seemed completely different than the earlier narrator entirely.

While I appreciate the underlying focus of this novel - the faulty weight society places on appearances and reputation, the different forms and meanings of forgiveness, and if some things can truly be atoned for - the actual execution of this in "The Apology" made for a difficult read.

Thank you Little, Brown and Company for the advance copy of this novel!

[Christine Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Apology by Jimin Han is a really lovely book that is equal parts wistful, heartfelt, and endearingly comic. When we meet the narrator, 105-year-old Jeonuga Cha, in the first few pages of the novel, she's unfortunately about to be hit by a bus while rushing off in a panic to prevent her sister's great-grandson from marrying her own great-granddaughter, a person whose existence the rest of her family is unaware of. Over the course of the story, Jeonga explains more about her family history and the events that led to this situation, and even in death she attempts to right the wrongs and guide her descendants to happiness.

Jeonga is such a memorable narrator. She's a woman whose strong dense of duty and propriety has perhaps led her to make some decisions that she has come to regret now that she's looking back on them with the benefit of hindsight and the perspective of the long decades that have passed. Jimin Han very deftly pulls off the trick of allowing the reader to perceive the nuances in interactions that her narrator fails to see. As a result, Jeonga comes across as very authentic and very human in all her fallibility.

One thing that this book made me look into was the significance of persimmons, which come up a lot in the story. I didn't know before that persimmons are a Buddhist symbol of transformation, because they go from being a very bitter, green plant when immature to a sweet and nourishing fruit when ripe. The story here is certainly one of transformation, and it's a very poignant one as we see Jeonga reevaluate the things that were so important to her throughout pivotal moments in her life and realize that in trying to do what she thought was best, she made decisions that would ultimately lead to the biggest regrets of her life.

The ending feels perhaps a touch rushed. I was surprised to see 89% in the corner of my ereader when I thought there was still a lot more that could be explored. The other characters are not as well developed as Jeonga is, and I would've liked to learn more about some parts that seemed a little glossed over. But it's a really heartwarming story that will definitely stay with me, and I think it would make an incredible movie.

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a pleasant book - the main character (Jeonga) is definitely a forceful person and an interesting lens through which we view the events of the book. I will say I find her elderly quips sassy and fun, but beyond that there isn’t much more to her.. sure we get her backstory, and the family dynamics are probably the best part of the book, but I do wish we had more insight into who she was as a person beyond her criticisms of the people and life around her.

What I think brought this book down for me for a bit were the afterlife/ghost sequences which lacked clarity and vision. I felt like I sort of wanted them to end so I could get back to Jeonga’s interactions with living people.. and it’s a shame because those sequences were originally the parts I was most looking forward to. A simple read, you can enjoy it but don’t look for anything too deep beyond what the back cover description has.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Apology by Jimin Han is a powerful intergenerational saga that is also a ghost story about the effort to repair mistakes made in the earthly realm from the afterlife. Our protagonist, Jeonga Cha, is the daughter who wants more than any of her sisters to please her father (even after his death) and protect the family name. When her sister, Seona becomes pregnant out of wedlock she sends her away to the US and this has severe implications for the family lineage. This decision tears Jeonga and her own son's relationship apart and also damages the bond between Jeonga and Seona.

I love how readers are able to journey along with Jeonga in the afterlife as she seeks to apologize to her sister and make amends for her choices. At first, we are not sure Seona will appear to Jeonga. There is so much hurt in their history and Seona is not necessarily the type of woman who is apologetic by nature. Over the course of the story, Jeonga meets her extended family, views first hand the negative impact of her choices, and is humbled into taking a different approach towards helping the family and as a result her and her sister heal.

In the end, apologies are sincerely made and generational curses are broken. A beautiful story about what it takes for generational healing to occur with a focus on the supernatural and spiritual elements that make healing possible.

Thank you to the publisher and the author for the e-arc copy!

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Apology is rich, epic story of how every individual's actions reverberate through the generations -- a message that is as daunting as it is hopeful. What is the cost of our mistakes on those who come after all -- and how far must we go to reverse the damage? I found this story so meaningful while also funny at times, infused with wise observations about family, and so very evocative. Jimin Han's is a fresh, compelling voice. I just loved this book!

[AndiReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeonga Cha is the 105 year old matriarch of her Korean family. She has done her best to lead and keep the family intact and that includes hiding some secrets. In a captivating account, we hear what happens to her both in her life and afterlife as she struggles to make right what she chose long ago. This is an enthralling novel for anyone who enjoys family histories, drama and of course secrets!
#LittleBrownandco #TheApology #JiminHan

[daniella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to like this but did not. The story was very slow and the writing was off for me. I did like the concept of multi-generational stories but this was hard to follow.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy to review.