I chose to read this title because it was not something I would normally chose to pick up. Coming from a white English middle-class background, I wanted to put myself into a place and scenario that I was completely unfamiliar with. This was also part of the problem for me, however, as I couldn't connect or empathise with the main characters.The characters were well drawn and very believable, however.
As the book is based on a true event, I think the author has done very well to represent both the personal and moral conflicts as well as the wider social issues and tensions amongst different cultural groups in L.A. I am all too aware from online videos of the prejudice and shocking injustice that the black community has to live with day to day, where you are seen as guilty of crime just because of the colour of your skin.
The importance of family and its bonds came across strongly but also the strength to forgive and the need to cross those cultural divides: to make bridges so that understanding and progress can take place.

Struggled with this one and ended up did not finishing it which is sad because was looking forward to it !!

Your House Will Pay is a gripping read that breaks your heart whilst raising lots of questions. There are no simple answers and family members can prove as destructive as outsiders (often inadvertently). I really did not want this book to end and some weeks on am still wondering what might have happened to the characters and communities. Thank you to Steph Cha for a beautifully written and thought provoking book and to Faber and Netgalley for providing me with this free ARC.

I found this really interesting.

It's not a book about the LA Riots of 1992, which I initially thought.

It is based around a real life incident in LA in 1991 and tells the story about the family of a young black teenager and the family of the Korean shopkeeper who shot her.

The story covers events during this period, and also the present day, when another tragic shooting occurs.

Would recommend.

I really struggled with this book, and I'm sorry to say I had to give up at 51 %. I just couldn't connect with any of the characters or the story. I hate to give up on a book but this one just wasn't for me

This novel charts the lives of two families living in Southern California, one Korean and the other black. They are linked by an event which took place twenty or so years earlier and explores their cultural and social differences and similarities. Ultimately it’s a story of redemption and forgiveness. Beautifully told and compelling to read.

Took me a little while to get into this, but once I did I loved it! Two families, several view points, one incident that affected them all in different ways. Highly recommend reading this

Thanks to NetGalley and Faber& Faber Ltd for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Your House Will Pay" is a timely and important novel about the continuing deterioration of race relations in modern America. Steph Cha manages to convey with her beautifully calibrated prose the enduring haunting spectre of fractured race relations in contemporary America. It says much about Cha's prodigious talent that this novel has the power to provoke a visceral response. I remember watching the footage of the 1991 murder, for there is no other word for it, of Latasha Harlins in 1991 and feeling at first shocked and then heart-pounding, blood pressure rising, hands shaking - anger.. The anger came when I learnt that the Korean store owner Jung-Ja Han who had casually shot and killed Latasha whilst she was buying milk was charged and convicted with manslaughter but served no jail time. It is quite ironic that I only learnt of Latasha;s murder through the tour de force documentary of Ezra Edelman, "OJ: Made in America”. We all know that OJ Simpson's much-vaunted defence team played the 'race-card' - the well-documented prejudice of the Los Angeles Police against African-Americans. This provided the black members of the jury with a powerful narrative to justify the acquittal of OJ, and whilst this perhaps can be seen as a striking example of wealth and fame as a mediating factor in racial discrimination, for those who cheered the verdict, OJ was a proxy for the centuries of suffering that African-Americans have endured and continue to endure in the United States. Although legislation that justified racial discrimination has long been repealed, other more informal measures of discrimination continue to ripple under the surface until they exploded in a fury of blood and violence: think Rodney King and the LA riots and the continuing spectre of racial tension that haunts America to this day.

The context for these events in "Your House Will Pay" are provided by the two families of Grace Park and Shawn Mathews. By viewing these events through the eyes and actions of a limited number of protagonists, Cha provides us with a powerful, thought-provoking narrative of racial injustice in microcosm. This prevents the abstraction that sometimes occurs when racial prejudice and discrimination are historicised over long periods of time - indelibly personal events become deeply impersonal with individuals the first casualties of the historical arc of change and continuity, imposed, often inductively, by the impersonal pen of the historian or social theorist. It is by eschewing the grand narrative of America's racial history, to focus on the individual that is at the heart of their own unique story, that Cha excels. "Your House Will Pay" is a beautifully composed story not only of hardship and violence, but love and redemption. Quite simply a tour de force.

Summary:

Grace Park and Shawn Mathews share a city – Los Angeles - but seemingly little else. Coming from different generations and very different communities, their paths wouldn’t normally cross at all. As Grace battles confusion over her elder sister’s estrangement from their Korean-immigrant parents, Shawn tries to help his cousin Ray readjust to city life after years spent in prison.
But something in their past links these two families. As the city around them threatens to erupt into violence, echoing the worst days of the early 1990s, the lives of Grace and Shawn are set to collide in ways which will change them all forever.
Beautifully written, and marked by its aching humanity as much as its growing sense of dread, Your House Will Pay is a powerful and urgent novel for today.

I thought from the title that this was going to be an insurance scam! The subject and contents were not to my taste at all.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Faber and Faber Ltd for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book although it took a couple of chapters for me to understand the timelines. The story starts in 1991 with violence on the streets of LA - a group of African-American youngsters intent on seeing a newly released film at a cinema in the mainly white area. Shawn is looking out for his sister Ava, but all participate in the inevitable unrest when the film is suddenly cancelled. This is followed by the LA uprising with African-Americans against the Korean Americans.

Forward 28 years to 2019 where Shawn greets his cousin Ray as he emerges from 10 years in prison. Shawn has become a 'family man'; looking after Ray's wife and children as well as his partner and her child. He has a steady job, having left his gang of friends and their dealings well behind him. But has Ray?

Grace Park, after years, still cannot understand why her sister Miriam is estranged from their parents - Korean-Americans, Living at home and qualified as a pharmacist she works with her parents and uncle in their shop in a Korean-dominated shopping mall.

Shawn Matthews's and Grace's worlds devastatingly collide. Both feel duty and loyalty to their families. Both want answers.

This is a story about racism and murder, but brought about by fractured race relations.
What's the connection between Grace and Shawn?

Sensitively written and emotional; totally absorbing. Based on real-life events and interpreted beautifully.
Excellent Read.

It took me a little while to get into this book but once I did I was hooked. Set against events of racial tension in America , now and in the 90s, the novel tells the story of two families interlinked by Past violence. It is a moving and sad book that tragically seems likely to remain relevant for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for all the characters.

2.5 rounded up

Split between the LA race riots of 1992 and the continued killing of black citizens by police in 2019 in the US, Your House Will Pay tells the story of two families caught up in these events from the perspectives of one member of each family, with sections set in the early 90s but primarily in the present day.

Cha's novel tells the story of a fictional crime with very real life parallels to the murder of Latasaha Harlins, examining the fallout of the crime on the two families. My hangup on the book was that it felt a bit too ambitious and didn't quite convey the tension and emotional destruction I knew it was trying to, instead it was like the author just scratched the surface of a huge and complex issue.

This is a cleverly conceived story set in the context of racist America. Two families share the same experience from different angles. Their suffering from both the events of the book and the culture in which they live is superbly well described. As it unfolds,the story brings the two main strands of the book together in an insightful but empathetic way. The characters are believable as is the description of America at that time. Has it changed much? The story is actually based on a true murder but the characters are largely fictional. On top of all that,the book is extremely well written. I strongly recommend this. It is a good read but it is also a chance to experience the events of the time in which it is set.

Wow. I’ve been rendered a little speechless by Your House Will Pay. It’s incredible. I’d heard a lot about it on Stateside book podcasts and was thrilled to receive an ARC. Put simply it is a tightly written, well plotted but character driven page turner with a theme and core about race, family belonging and choices.

With huge thanks to Faber and Faber and Netgalley for the ARC in consideration of an honest review.

This story is set in Los Angeles and is about two worlds colliding - one Korean-American family and one African-American. It is based on a true story of the shooting of Latasha Harlins in 1991 by a convenience store owner. This story also starts in 1991 one week after the beating of Rodney King when Ava Matthews, her brother Shawn, cousin Ray and friend Duncan cut school and go to a movie which is cancelled due to overselling. A riot and looting follows the cancellation as much due to the tinder dry atmosphere in LA post King - it took little for there to be an eruption of violence. A few days later Ava is shot dead whilst trying to buy milk, by Korean store owner Jung-Ja Han. Han is charged with manslaughter but served no jail time to the horror of Ava’s family. She then disappears. Shawn goes off the rails for a bit after this and served some jail time but got his life back on track. Fast forward to June 2019 when Grace and Miriam Park attend a memorial for another black teenager shot by LAPD where one of the key note speakers is Ava’s Aunt Sheila. On the same day, Ava’s cousin and Sheila’s son Ray is released for federal prison and is reunited with his family and cousin Shawn. This is a story of racial tension, family conflict and dynamics, revenge and the search for redemption.

The book is very well written switching from family to family easily and captures the tensions within and outside of both families. The closeness of Shawn’s family is obvious although there is some tension and jealousy between Shawn and Ray but Aunt Sheila is the glue that keeps them together. There are some heart breaking descriptions of what Ava meant to Shawn and the ripple effects on his family and that of the shooter. Grace Park is a pharmacist and still lives at home with her mother and father. I think the descriptions of her family life and how her parents settled in the US from Korea is especially interesting. There is division between Miriam and her parents but we don’t know why for a long time until it is revealed in a most dramatic way. This is when the two different worlds collide with disastrous consequences testing both families to the extreme.

This book reveals so much about society in that it shines a light on inequality in the justice system, on racial tension, the devastating effects that violence has on families and how this can sometimes lead the impressionable young into gang culture. It shows the divided nature of LA too - a city of tolerance but where sectors of society feel shunned. However, this is not exclusive to LA, this is a problem that goes way beyond US borders.

Overall, this is a very relevant book that proves sensitive issues and which really makes you think. The end is good and you hope that despite the many problems in Shawn’s and the Park family that some form of justice has been served and although reconciliation is perhaps too much to ask for, possibly there is some resolution.