The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

This is an interesting if somewhat harrowing story of a first generation American. There are two parallel stories, one of Mina, who immigrated to Los Angeles after she lost her husband and daughter in a traffic accident. She had very limited resources--no money, spoke no English, and had only one acquaintance in the US. She was at risk of being taken advantage of, and she narrowly escapes that fate. The second story is that of her daughter Margot--Margot never knew her father, grew up in poverty with her mother, and after leaving for college did not much return home. She is helping a friend move to LA and when she stops at her mother's place, shockingly she finds her dead. There is a question of whether foul play was involved and Margot goes about unraveling both her mother's present and her past. This is an enjoyable story that highlights the stumbling blocks that immigrants who come without the support of either people in the US or their country of origin. My one wish is that it raise fewer issues, and to go more into depth related to feelings. There is a superficiality there that I wish the surface had been scratched more deeply.