Korean American

North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which periodically incites risky military clashes with the larger, richer, liberal South, and which forces each and every person to play a role in the "theater state" even as it pays little more than lip service to the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority.

Riley Oh can't wait to see her sister get initiated into the Gom clan, a powerful lineage of Korean healing witches their family has belonged to for generations. Her sister, Hattie, will earn her Gi bracelet and finally be able to cast spells without adult supervision. Although Riley is desperate to follow in her sister's footsteps when she herself turns 13, she's a saram - a person without magic. Riley was adopted, and despite having memorized every healing spell she's ever heard, she often feels like the odd one out in her family and the gifted community.

Margot Lee's mother is ignoring her calls. Margot can’t understand why, until she makes a surprise trip home to Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. Determined to discover the truth, Margot unravels her single mother’s past as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother, Mina.

Couture gowns, press parties, international travel. Rachel Kim is at the top of her game. Girls Forever is now the number-one K-pop group in the world, and her fame skyrockets after her viral airport styling attracts the attention of fashion’s biggest names. Her life’s a swirl of technicolor glamour and adoring fans. Rachel can’t imagine shining any brighter.

Emma Yoon dreams of opening her very own culinary school in Los Angeles. She’s saving up for it by teaching young ladies the art of Korean royal court cuisine, a prerequisite to marrying into the exclusive upper crust Korean families. Thanks to her godmother, a renowned Korean matchmaker, business is booming, and Emma doesn’t have the time, nor the desire, to settle down herself. But when rival matchmakers come after her godmother by taking issue with Emma’s single status, her godmother’s reputation and Emma’s dreams face potential ruin.

Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing—she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center. So when international K-pop superstar Robbie Choi shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever.

Junie Kim just wants to fit in. So she keeps her head down and tries not to draw attention to herself. But when racist graffiti appears at her middle school, Junie must decide between staying silent or speaking out. Then Junie’s history teacher assigns a project and Junie decides to interview her grandparents, learning about their unbelievable experiences as kids during the Korean War. Junie comes to admire her grandma’s fierce determination to overcome impossible odds, and her grandpa’s unwavering compassion during wartime.

Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic.

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than for love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: “Can she speak English?”

Twelve-year-old Jordan feels like he can't live up to the example his older sister set or his parent's expectations. When he returns home from school one day hoping to hide his suspension, Los Angeles has reached a turning point. In the wake of the acquittal of the police officers filmed beating Rodney King, as well as the shooting of a young Black teen, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean store owner, the country is at the precipice of confronting its racist past and present.

Mina is a professional pickpocket and thief for a huge South Korean conglomerate (chaebol) into which she was born. Having brought great shame to the chaebol as a teenager, she is obligated to work as a criminal for them. This chaebol is also a crime syndicate. She desperately wants out of her dangerous and depressing existence. She sees a ray of hope in the character of Sienna who is the complete opposite to her. She becomes obsessed with Sienna to the point she complicates things on a truly horrific scale.

How the mighty have fallen. Anna K, once the golden girl of Greenwich, CT, and New York City, has been brought low by a scandalous sex tape and the tragic death of her first love, Alexia Vronsky. At the beginning of the summer, her father takes her to the other side of the world, to connect with his family in South Korea and hide her away. Back in the US, Lolly has forgiven Steven for cheating on her, and their relationship feels stronger than ever. But when Lolly meets a boy at her beloved theater camp, she has to ask herself how well Steven will ever really know her.

Ken Hideyoshi is the new guy in Halawa Correctional Institute. He’s tough looking, a hard case. His cellmate is Cal—the mute tattoo artist of the prison who murdered his own wife. Ken, already inked with a gang symbol and a Japanese emblem, eventually asks Cal to create an elaborate tattoo on his back, in kanji script, of Musashi’s Book of the Void.

"American Dream?" is written in Korean and English. It allows you to witness the struggles and hopes of immigrants of non-European descent in the U.S.A. The book also shows the other side of the nursing field.

On April 29, 1992, following the acquittal of four police officers charged with the beating and arrest of Rodney King and the earlier killing of teenager Latasha Harlins, the city of Los Angeles erupted in violence. Many of these events were centered on the city’s Koreatown, where tensions between the Black and Korean American communities had simmered for years, fueled by economic challenges and redlining and enflamed by sensationalized and racist media.

Yongju is an accomplished student from one of North Korea's most prominent families. Jangmi has had to fend for herself since childhood, most recently by smuggling goods across the border. Danny is a Chinese American teenager of North Korean descent whose quirks and precocious intelligence have long marked him as an outcast in his California high school. These three disparate lives converge when each of them travels to the region where China borders North Korea.

Rev. Manwoo A. Kim started writing poetry during his college days at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Reading this volume containing Rev. Kim's poems (translated from Korean by Onyoo Elizabeth Kim, Esq.), the reader will benefit from his many years of viewing the world through poetic lenses. Rev. Kim's poems reflecting on the grace of God inspire the reader to higher things, and his poems focusing on the suffering of Jesus Christ for His people will move the readers to tears.

Maya’s grandmother, Halmunee, may be losing her memory, but there’s something almost magical about the way she cooks. Whether Halmunee serves salty miyeokguk or sweet songpyeon, her stories about Korea come to life for Maya. Then one day, something extraordinary happens: a single delicious bite of patbingsu transports Maya and Halmunee back into one of Halmunee’s memories. Suddenly they’re in Seoul, and Halmunee is young. This is just the first of many secrets Maya will uncover: that she and her grandmother can time-travel, and they aren’t the only ones with this ability.

Jackie Oh is done being your model minority. She’s tired of perfect GPAs, PSATs, SATs, all of it. Jackie longs to become a professional chef. But her Korean American parents are Ivy League corporate workaholics who would never understand her dream. Just ask her brother, Justin, who hasn’t heard from them since he was sent to Rikers Island. Jackie works at her grandparents’ Midtown Manhattan deli after school and practices French cooking techniques at night—when she should be studying.