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Book Summary and Reviews of The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

The Stone Home

A Novel

by Crystal Hana Kim

  • Critics' Consensus (11):
  • Readers' Rating (28):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2024, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center.

In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife—a knife Eunju hasn't seen in more than thirty years, and that connects her to a place she'd desperately hoped to leave behind forever.

In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they're sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation's citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions—and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.

Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter's love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Riveting...Kim generates empathy for all the characters by showing the anguish and desperation that drive their harrowing deeds. This confirms Kim's reputation as a formidable talent." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Kim transforms an ignominious slice of modern Korean history into a mesmerizing exploration of family bonds repeatedly tested by tortuous circumstances. [Her] second novel is a wrenching, haunting read as her breathtaking storytelling provides indelible testimony to witness and behold." —Booklist (starred review)

"It is a privilege to read Crystal Hana Kim's fiction, which both edifies and enlightens." —Min Jin Lee

"With ferocity as well as tremendous tenderness and psychological insight, Crystal Hana Kim brilliantly bears witness to shocking state-sanctioned brutality in 1980s South Korea while telling a universally resonant story of lost innocence, resistance, survival, family bonds, and how communities form in even the most desperate circumstances. Haunting and suspenseful, The Stone Home dares its characters, and readers, to hope." —Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers

"The Stone Home is an absolutely necessary read that shines light on a crucial yet overlooked point in history. Through her luminous talent, perfect prose, and unwavering narrative might, Crystal Hana Kim transforms a difficult historical moment into a moving portrait of generational strife and familial devotion. To what extent will we go to protect the ones we love? To protect the truth? The human heart is fallible yet also miraculous in what it can endure. Here is a book that entwines the stories of many into one collective, beating heart." —Weike Wang, award-winning author of Chemistry

"Propulsive and unflinching, Crystal Hana Kim deftly balances the factual and emotional truths of a vivid setting and cast of characters. The Stone Home is a raw, authentic, and empathetic look at a little-known piece of history—everyone should read it." —Sara Novic, New York Times bestselling author of True Biz

"Impressive, multi-layered, and haunting; choral in its unflinching, realistic, yet heartfelt account of state-sanctioned violence. A necessary read." —Nafissa Thompson-Spires, award-winning author of Heads of the Colored People

"Crystal Hana Kim is one of today's most exquisite writers. Her beautiful words tell a brutal story of family, state, and the history walled off during our lifetimes. It's a story we need to know, put on the page by the author we trust to tell it. Stunning, frightening, and awe-inspiring, The Stone Home is the book we have been waiting for." —Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth

This information about The Stone Home was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Crystal Hana Kim

Crystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. Kim is the recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award and is a 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize winner. Currently, she is the Visiting Assistant Professor at Queens College and a contributing editor at Apogee Journal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

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