Huge thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. Oxford Soju Club will be published on September 30th 2025.

Oxford Soju Club was both everything I expected and nothing like what I imagined at the same time. The story follows a small handful of spies in opposing camps: South Koreans, North Koreans and Americans. Each of them is a facet of immigrant identity that Park explores, deconstructing what it means to be Korean. Despite this, the novel is versatile and incredibly relatable, parts of it (as highlighted in the quotes above) tugging at the invisible strings that tether me to my own country and identity.

On the surface, the book is a spy thriller/mystery, with each chapter flowing between past and present, placing the magnifying glass in turns above the northerner, the southerner and the American. The action is slow paced at times, even though the writing is pretty short and choppy (not my favorite style, but I see the appeal).

I feel as though this would've worked even better if it was longer, a deeper dive into the characters. I adore character focused books, and Park managed to construct his with a satisfying, yet tragic depth. Bittersweet, if you will. As an immigrant myself, it was easy to relate, to understand their motivations. In the end, all the masks come off, everything tying up in the last few chapters. I really wish the book was longer or that the spying elements were either more plausible, or more developed. Huge potential, looking forward to Park's future works.

Oxford Soju Club is an interesting novel with a great premise with an interesting story telling mechanism. However, if I didn't have any sort of knowledge of Korean culture or words I feel like I would be completely lost in the novel.

The novel uses a lot of Korean from honorifics, food, drinking culture and standards, and lessons that anyone who didn't understand the labor and effort of making your own kimchi would just be confused why the book took a hard left into a memory of Kimchi making. Or why a test for Korean high schoolers take months in advance to study for.

Another is the non linear plot, I would have liked some sort of timeline or chapter heading to know where exactly in the story we are in, and sometimes we jump years to days in the middle of the chapter. It can be hard to piece together where one interaction is in the whole narrative.

It can also be difficult to know who is talking and what they look like. At times we get the characters names told 10 times in a row and others we get speaking parts that go on and a small hint to who is being talked to who. I also found myself just imagining blank canvases of faces for the main characters as most of the details is in their background and now the facial features.

Overall a good read, but for anyone not immersed in Korean culture I do recommend having a browser open to look up all the amazing food the characters eat, for context on Suneung, and the back breaking labor kimchi making can be and how it is different from pickling.

Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park is a book I've had my eye on since the author initially announced it, so I was absolutely leaping with joy when I was approved for an arc on NetGalley. I love reading books by translators and I love reading books from small Canadian presses that do interesting work, so it's a complete win all around for me honestly. And it's even more of a win because I really liked the book!

The book is set up as a kind of spy thriller that takes place in Oxford, and the story plays out primarily between three different perspectives: a North Korean, a South Korean, and a Korean American. There are some other characters, but most of the story revolves around them.

You can more or less get all of this information from the book synopsis, but what I wasn't expecting was for the book to actually shift point of view throughout the novel. I'm not really sure why I didn't expect this given the emphasis on the importance of the different perspectives and what I've heard the author mention about the book on social media, but it was an extremely welcome surprise. I absolutely love stories that do perspective changes.

It doesn't do just perspective shifts though—time jumps around as well. This is another feature of fiction that I really enjoy and I think it works really well for this story. Between the perspective and time shifts and the present tense narration, I found this novel really easy to become completely absorbed in. I didn't find the narrative intense, which I think many people reading a thriller would expect, but I think the story manages to thrill in a sense in a slow and contemplative way.

Things happen quickly, but because of the shifting perspectives and time, these events simultaneously feel like they're moving the speed of molasses. It's a good thing in this case. You know the characters as they know themselves and see how they evolve and move forward even as you're flying back in time. And this is perfect for a novel that I think is about identity and finding your place in the world because of and despite of the people around you. It's a powerful message.

And I don't think that you need to be Korean to understand or relate to that message. I know it head home for me and my life experience is vastly different than any of the characters in the novel or even the author.

Oxford Soju Club heartwarming and hopeful tragedy of a novel and I hope so many people enjoy it as much as I did.

This was a fun and fast read. I liked that the story had high stakes but was still easy to follow. It jumps between the past and present, but it’s clear what’s going on. I’m keeping this short so I don’t spoil anything, but if you like thrillers and modern stories, this one mixes both really well.

The Oxford Soju Club is not a spy novel. This may come as a surprise, given that the plot centres on intelligence agents from North Korea, the Republic of Korea, and the USA spying on, and occasionally shooting at, each other in Oxford, of all places. However, these shoot-outs, covert identities and surveillance games merely provide the backdrop for an exploration of the fractured identity of Koreans. The novel takes its tagline, 'The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean', very seriously.

After the North Korean spy master Doha Kim is killed on the first page, the main characters are three people: Yohan Kim, a North Korean spy with a mysterious past and a close relationship with the murdered Doha Kim; Yunah Choi, a Korean-American CIA agent whose parents run a bagel shop and are waiting for her to get married; and Jihoon Lim, the owner of the eponymous restaurant, The Soju Club, who fled grief in South Korea and found himself in the middle of this storyby great cooking and sheer accident. The narrative is strongest when it comes to the masks our protagonists wear, the roles they have to play; when it talks abouzt their complicated loyalties and identities, which appear flattened under a Western gaze; and when it shows us the the murky grey areas that arise when people fight for a regime rather than individual truths.

And yes, there is a lot of spy stuff, but mostly the boring kind. People sit around and talk. They receive messages ordering them to go to other places (okay, mostly the Soju Club) to meet more people and talk more talk. They sit in flats and are shot at by people breaking in, or they are not in flats and are shot at by people driving by. Quite a few people die. However, there is little interest in the mystery because there really isn't one.

I believe Jinwoo Park has written an intriguing little novel that will disappoint anyone looking for a spy thriller. However, if you take the foreword seriously and view it through the lens of origin and identity, it is an interesting debut. It's not perfect, and it becomes a bit melodramatic at times. But it's interesting, with a clear point of view and precise prose. I am excited to see more by the author!

This book is a literary thriller, with a heavy emphasis on literary with a light side of thriller in my opinion. But that actually made it better for me, because I am not usually into spy thrillers. What I am into is character building, and that is spectacularly well done in this book. Like truly phenomenal, rendered me speechless, level characters. Each of the three characters was so well formed, with their complex relationships to Korea and family obligations and hopes and dreams. The author did a spectacular job of weaving in the backstories through a slightly nonlinear narrative and clear shifts between each character perspective. The plot was technically really well written, with great reveals and lots of tension, but I just did not really care about the spy warfare and espionage and such compared to how much I cared about the characters. I think in part it was the spy world was very sparsely built. However, I did love the ending because it wrapped up both the plot and characters in a satisfying yet open ended way. So overall I recommend this book.

3.5

When I started this I was SO sure it was going to be a dnf (which I desperately didn’t want bc I love listening to Park’s opinions and thoughts online) because I was struggling so much to get into it. I couldn’t keep up with the characters, the tense and setting shifts, the plot points. And then BOOM. After I made it past maybe the first third of the book, I was hooked. Nothing was tearing me away from this. I HAD to know what happened to the central characters. I don’t read spy fiction and that was definitely the reason why I found it hard to get into, but once I got used to it I devoured it. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the arc.

Big thanks for the publisher and the author so I can enjoy the ARC of this book!

Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park is a genre-bending debut that blends espionage with deep reflections on identity and diaspora. Beneath the spy thriller surface lies a poignant exploration of the masks immigrants wear to survive.

I appreciate the layered storytelling, the novel operates on two levels; spy thriller and immigrant identity drama. Thoughtful themes, explores assimilation, diaspora, and the psychological toll of divided loyalties.

I dislike the pacing dips, some introspective sections slow the momentum of the thriller plot. Also unfortunately the heavy symbolism, the metaphorical weight of identity and performance may feel dense for readers seeking a straightforward spy story.

3.5

I really wanted to like this book. I appreciate what the author offers on instagram, the cover is sublime, the title intriguing... And I can't say that I didn't like it at all. All the ideas are good, the place and the characters well chosen, the revelations interesting but... But it clearly lacks the magic ingredient that helps it all take shape, it lacks depth, relief and thickness. I don't like very big books, I don't like it when it drags on but clearly here there was still room to better build the universe of the novel and its heroes. And on North Korea, its past, its relations with other countries, there is no shortage of things to say, on loyalty, on identity either... In short, we remain far too much on the surface. The proliferation of characters and time periods also doesn't help with getting into the story, especially when each one is sometimes referred to by four different names! Finally, I was expecting more tension, more excitement, but the American agents are so close to caricature that I actually laughed.
The ending is like the rest: there are some good ideas, one pointless twist, and too little development. It's so frustrating when everything was here to create a great novel.

   Je voulais vraiment aimé ce livre. J'apprécie ce que l'auteur propose sur les réseaux, la couverture est sublime, le titre intriguant... Et je ne peux pas dire que je n'ai pas aimé du tout d'ailleurs. Toutes les idées sont bonnes, le lieu et les personnages bien choisis, les révélations intéressantes mais... Mais ça manque clairement de l'ingrédient magique qui aide tout cela à prendre forme, ça manque d'approfondissement, de relief et d'épaisseur. Je n'aime pas les pavés, je n'aime pas quand ça s'étire en longueur mais clairement ici il restait de la place pour mieux construire l'univers du roman et de ses héros. Et sur la Corée du Nord, son passé, ses relations avec les autres pays, il ne manque pas de choses à dire, sur la loyauté, sur l'identité non plus... Bref, on reste beaucoup trop en surface. La multiplication des personnages et des temporalités n'aide pas non plus à entrer dans l'histoire, surtout quand on désigne chacun par quatre noms différents parfois ! Enfin, je m'attendais à plus de tension, plus de frémissements mais les agents américains sont tellement à la limite de la caricature que j'ai plutôt rigolé.
   La fin est comme le reste, il y a de bonnes idées, un rebondissement inutile et trop peu de développements. C'est tellement frustrant quand tout était réuni pour nous concocter un super roman.


 Liens à Venir

Spies , culture and mystery sight me up was the first thought that came to mind

I actually wasn't able to guess what will happen next. The pace was good and the premise was interesting .

The only downside was the formatting and i got confused from the amount of characters in the book

I'd like to send my thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing a free version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When Yohan Kim's mentor, Doha Kim is killed, he is left a message directing him to the Soju club and Dr Ryu. Jihoon Lim proprietor of the Oxford Soju Club is wrestling with his haunted past while having to deal with threats around him in Oxford. American CIA agent Yunah Choi meanwhile is closing in on her target. All three are Korean immigrants carrying the baggage of their divided homeland. All three wear different masks. All three are trying to stay alive. All three will find their lives intertwined.
This was a really complicated, interesting read. Essentially it's a diaspora spy novel but it's really complicated. We go back and forth in the plot, characters change names, but despite the confusion, it's really gripping and the ending helps make sense of it all. I really enjoyed this book and I'm going to recommend it to my book club.

I didn't think much when I picked up this book. Just another position by an Asian author that was raised overseas. But it was actually pretty good. And I actually wasn't able to guess what will happen next. The pace was good and the premise was interesting – who doesn't like to read about spies? Anyway, I don't want to go into the content, because that would spoil the book but it is a good read for a chill summer evening.

The only downside was the formatting and I hope they'll fix it up before the official publication.

I'd like to send my thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing a free version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for an e-arc of this book.

I don't read thrillers at all, much less spy thrillers, but I was intrigued mainly for themes of Korean identities intersecting with assimilation and immigration, how immigrants adopt masks to survive. I liked how the cast represented different facets of that, but I think the multiple identities and dialogue made it hard for me to emotionally engage with the story. I understand it needed to be fast paced for the genre, but I wished we slowed down a bit to really sink into the characters.

There was a lot going for this book and it will make a killer (hah) movie one day. Following three spies, North and South Korean, and Korean American, but set in England, this book had a lot going on. There were a lot of characters and many of them had multiple names (i.e. identities) because, well, spies.

Watching the intersection of the three stories come together was a fascinating culture clash (and not just Korean cultures, but I don't want to spoil). This book was a fast read, but it probably could have been longer. Much of it was dialogue, which can get confusing. I did enjoy when Park discussed the familial complexities within some stories, and overall ended up enjoying the read but not loving it. But again, it's going to make a great movie.

I can appreciate what Park was trying to do here, but it was a behemoth task for a debut.

Wanted to love this and hope others will; found it hard to get into and couldn’t connect with the characters. DNF at 50 pages, unfortunately. Fantastic concept for a spy novel and was looking forward to the themes being explored - identity and culture informing each other. I wish the author the best.

I had a really hard time following the narrative of this book. To be fair, I do not read spy novels very often. But I found the writing and scenes to be choppy and it really took a lot of gumption to engage in it. :( :(

I wanted to like this book more than I did as I am fascinated by how Korean identity is shaped by its history and I expected to get a sense of this from this book. The fact that it was set in Oxford, which is an interesting setting for a spy story and a Korean Soju club also captured my imagination. Unfortunately, the multiple timelines and multiple identities in this story made it a confusing and frustrating read and I found it difficult to engage with many of the characters, with the exception of Jihoon, who I loved.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

⭐️ 3.75

When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha’s last breath: “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.” In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation of the North Korean spy cell in the aftermath of the assassination. At the centre of it all is the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford, owned by Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul in search of a new life after suffering a tragedy. As different factions move in with their own agendas, their fates become entangled, resulting in a bitter struggle that will determine whose truth will triumph.

Overall this is basically a spy story, containing several twists and turns throughout, but for a big part it’s also a character study of 3 ethnically Korean people with vastly different backgrounds. Personally it really depended on the character how much I cared about them. A stand out was Jihoon, his background & conclusion. I liked how the writer kept several mysteries through out all povs, the different threads all coming together near the end of the book. Although the nonlinear story telling that comes with it does need a certain amount of attention. It also does help having some background on Korean history before reading this story, which worked out fine for me personally. Overall I recommend this story to those interested in espionage, international politics and the search for personal identity.

This book had such a unique vibe. It mixed humour, heart, and chaos in a way that really captured what it’s like to be figuring yourself out. The Oxford setting, Korean culture, and messy friendships gave it a fresh feel, and I loved how real the emotions felt at times—especially around identity, family, and trying to belong.

That said, there were moments where the pacing felt a bit off or the tone shifted too quickly, and I sometimes wanted just a bit more depth in certain scenes. But overall, it was such an original, bold story and I’m really glad I read it.

It’s quirky, raw, and sometimes surprisingly moving—definitely one that stands out.

4 ⭐

This book reads like a classic 90s spy thriller, throwing curveballs at you left and right, incredibly suspenseful, and featuring minor on-page violence. But the most captivating part was the characters' inner monologues; feeling the loss of identity, your past being erased and rewritten under the guise of National loyalty, being forced to make choices between serving your country and losing a part of yourself in the process, or losing your life for a second of bliss.

How much are you willing to sacrifice for your country, and how many lives are you willing to sweep under the rug to prove your loyalty to a country that would not hesitate to eliminate you the second you cease to become useful?

`Thank you so much to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for an early proof in exchange for an honest review.