In WHEN WE FELL APART, his poignant and complex debut, Soon Wiley explores cultural identity, familial expectations and obligations, and the mysterious death of a girl on the brink of her full potential.

Born to an American father and a Korean mother, Min has never felt certain about his identity or sense of belonging. Growing up in California, he stood out among his peers as more Korean than American, despite his mother’s marriage to (and subsequent divorce from) a white man, casting them as decidedly different among their Korean church community. In college, Min comfortably straddled the line between his white and Asian friends. But as friend groups grew tighter and couples formed, he felt forced to choose an identity, a lens through which to view himself and the world around him. Unable to find meaning or purpose in either side of himself, Min travels to Seoul, Korea, in search of a sense of belonging, a place where his differences are not differences at all, but qualities he can share with an entire country of people who look, long and dream like him.

"The dual narrative sets a propulsive, suspenseful pace, while the emotionally resonant and searing analyses of relationships give each storyline weight and complexity."

For over a year, Min has found some success in Seoul: a lucrative job as a cultural consultant, a recreational sports league and even a girlfriend, Yu-jin. A brilliant and self-assured business student, Yu-jin presents a compelling certainty to Min: to her, he is American through and through, not half this or half that. Her easy classification of his identity is a relief, yet their relationship has a guaranteed expiration date between her graduation and his eventual return to the states. And so the two are able to embark on a relationship with no real strings or expectations, which allows them to be open and honest with one another in a way that they cannot be with their peers. Or so Min thinks.

When the Seoul police inform Min that Yu-jin has died by suicide only hours after her last exam and their last date, Min is beside himself. Yu-jin was excelling in her classes, fulfilled in her relationships and, after a lifetime of hard work and dedication, destined for the kind of success that many people can only dream of. She was not floundering under the pressure of educational or career stress, nor was she lonely or prone to sadness. So why would she have ended her bright, promising life? Although Min knows that what he and Yu-jin had was not necessarily love, he becomes obsessed with learning the truth about her life and its tragic end. It’s a quest that will send him not only into the deepest, darkest corners of Yu-jin’s secrets, but also into the shortcomings of his assumptions and the breaking point of his own search for belonging.

In alternating chapters, Wiley approaches Yu-jin’s life from two perspectives: her own, as she is accepted into prestigious Ewha University and moves to vibrant Seoul for the first time, and Min’s, as he simultaneously grieves and investigates the events leading up to her death. As readers learn, Yu-jin was not only a devoted, nearly obsessive student, she was a young girl desperate to escape her military hometown and her supportive but controlling parents and reinvent herself. Her acceptance to Ewha not only fulfills her parents’ dreams for her, but offers her a chance to wipe the slate clean and declare herself to the world.

Upon arriving at Ewha, Yu-jin meets her roommate, So-ra, a dancer who, like her, has been in pursuit of a single goal. The two become fast friends, supporting each other in their divergent but similarly passionate ambitions. But while the support of Yu-jin’s parents has always felt contingent on her potential, So-ra’s faith in her feels larger, more about accepting who she is at any given moment than about who she might be. And with that faith comes something that feels much deeper than friendship --- a relationship that unbinds Yu-jin from all the restraints of her parents’ ambitions and her own standards, and allows her to emphatically and earnestly declare herself to another person. This freedom comes with an impossible cost, but of course, Min knows none of that.

Writing in both first- and third-person, Wiley paints a tragic, haunting portrait of a woman who was happy to live under the constraints of her family’s expectations until she learned how much was really out there, and how much of herself she was limiting by following the course set for her since birth. At the same time, through Min’s perspective, Wiley explores the ways that cultural, racial and familial identities shape, form and even blind us, all while we attempt to pin down a single narrative or cultural lens. The dual narrative sets a propulsive, suspenseful pace, while the emotionally resonant and searing analyses of relationships give each storyline weight and complexity.

At once a noir-like mystery and a deeply compelling coming-of-age story that poignantly examines agency, expectations and perspective, WHEN WE FELL APART is a beautiful novel perfect for readers of EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU, WHAT’S LEFT OF ME IS YOURS and MEMORIAL.