All I can say is WOW!
This is an emotional story following three generations of Korean women - a story filled with trauma, grief and compassion.
I thought it was beautifully written, moving from the past in 1980s to 2008 and capturing a very complicated time in Korean history. I thought the characters were written well and I liked being able to feel the emotion from each one of them - even those characters who only had a minor role.
I was hooked from the start and had to fight back tears at some points! I'm so glad I had the chance to read it.

Thank you Random House UK, Vintage & NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Minbak by Ela Lee is a moving multigenerational novel about family, displacement, and the weight of unspoken history. Set between South Korea in the 1980s and London decades later, it follows three generations of women whose lives are shaped by political upheaval, migration, and difficult choices. I found the novel emotionally resonant and grounded, with a strong sense of place and a thoughtful exploration of how personal and national histories intertwine.

This a beautiful multi-generational story of grief and displacement, compassion and forgiveness. I have purchased Ela Lee’s earlier book, ‘Jaded’, last year and haven’t managed to read that, but as soon as I finished her second book, I knew I would love to read that one straightaway.

The plot moves back and forth between Incheon, South Korea in 1985 and London in 2008. The main character is Hana, a South Korean woman living in London, who finds her life drastically changed upon the sudden passing of her husband, Tim. With piling debts, a teenage daughter Ada and an ailing mother Youngja, she is forced to find ways to make a living, so she converts their family home into a ‘minbak’ — a guesthouse hosting temporary housing to travellers. It’s slowly revealed that her mother Youngja used to run a similar minbak in Incheon, where Hana experienced some great losses.

I love the author’s ability to write across about different time and cross continents seamlessly, and I love the deep characterisation and stunning prose. I kept on thinking what the book is really about - at the core of it, it feels like it’s a book about choices, memory, and ultimately, love.

“…Home wasn’t a place. It was your people. It was where your spirit was last whole. It was the locus that lay central to everything. From which you came and to which you returned.”

I think it’ll stay with me for a while.

I expect this book to win awards during 2026

Minbak by Ela Lee is a quietly powerful novel that unfolds with patience and emotional clarity. At its core, this story is deeply rooted in culture and how it is preserved, strained, and reshaped across generations. I loved that Lee explored everything in depth but showed fragility in doing so.

What surprised me most was the beauty of the love in this book. The love of family through every challenge, showing that love is also complicated, imperfect, and often unspoken. Lee captures how love can exist alongside disappointment and distance, which made the relationships feel especially real

The shifting time periods do take some getting used to. While the transitions eventually add richness and perspective, there were moments early on where I had to pause and reorient myself.

Though there were places where I wished certain emotional threads had been explored a bit more deeply, Minbak remains a thoughtful and beautiful read. I enjoyed this book greatly

Minbak is a quietly devastating novel about three generations of Korean women whose present is, in different ways, haunted by the past. It's a story of memory, loss and the flawed choices people make out of love.

It's an emotional read without melodrama: just the heartbreak of old wounds reopening. The characters all feel fully human, at times flawed and frustrating, (mis)shaped by the decisions they've made. Lee writes with compassion for each of her narrators, and there is a sense that, although the past may be painful, it's possible to inherit strength as well as sorrow.

Beautiful and bittersweet, I'm sure we'll be seeing Minbak all over shelves this Spring.

What a devastatingly beautiful story of three generations of women's intertwining story. This book is heartbreaking but utterly stunning.

The story follows three generations of Korean women through their lives, both during their time separated and intersecting. Showcasing the difficulties of secrets, trauma, pain, tenderness and so much more. I loved this book.

Minbak by Ela Lee is a quietly powerful and deeply moving book that spans generations, continents, and unspoken histories with remarkable emotional clarity.

The story opens in Incheon in 1985, where a nameless baby is born in a minbak and disappears just nine days later. Decades later in London, tragedy forces Hana to make devastating choices. With no other option, she moves her teenage daughter Ada and her ailing mother Youngja into a single room, turning the rest of their home into a minbak. This painful echo of her past life brings long buried memories and unresolved truths sharply back into focus.

Confined together, the three women are left with nowhere to hide. As past and present collide, the book becomes not just a family story, but a meditation on national history, cultural memory, and inherited trauma. The way Lee intertwines personal and collective histories is handled with great care and restraint.

What struck me most was the tenderness of the relationships at the heart of this book. The love between these women is constant but complicated, shaped by disappointment, silence, and generational misunderstanding. Lee captures beautifully how love can exist alongside distance and hurt, making the family dynamics feel painfully real.

The writing is subtle and assured, exploring heavy themes with fragility and respect rather than force. The shifting timelines do take a little getting used to, and I did find myself pausing early on to reorient, but as the story unfolds these transitions add real depth and perspective.

This is a book that lingers. Thoughtful, emotionally rich, and quietly devastating, it feels destined for recognition. I would not be surprised at all to see this book winning awards in 2026.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

This book is a perfect example of why I love reading historical fiction, especially when it's so exquisitely written and full of heart.
First of all, it usually takes me a fair chunk of the story in order to feel attached and invested in the characters, but on page 10 of this story I was quietly weeping, already so completely sold, and the familiar feeling of wanting to protect a fictional character was very welcome.
We follow the story of three generations of women, and a combination of born & raised, born & displaced, and not-born in Korea.
The story explores the unfairness of working women kept away from education. It explores the dynamic of ostracism and isolation. It taught me so much about the Babies Exodus of South Korea, born in the face of economical and societal hardship and witnessed by all those who survived occupation, war and dictatorships. Morphed later into something horrific, exploitative and profit-driven.
Different people will relate to different characters. For me, this book was a masterpiece, a perfect exercise in empathy and survival.
The writing felt sure-footed and emotional. Not a lot of how our protagonists are feeling is left between the lines for you to pick up, it's all laid bare and raw. Whether you like this or not is a matter of taste. It didn't feel tell-not-show, to me. It was beautiful.

I'll add that multiple PoV chapters is something I love, but additional chapters from the point of view of marginal characters are a hard thing to do correctly, as they can feel like padding if not done well, but can enrich the story if well written and purposeful. So happy that in this case, it was the latter.

Thank you to the Publisher for the review copy. I had a wonderful time.

Wow what can I say about this book, I will start by saying thank you to netgalley and Random House UK for the chance to read this book as an eARC.

This is a sweeping, multigenerational story that shed light on secrets of 1980’s Korea and how this affected the family at the center of the story.

This book is beautifully written, with breathtaking prose. It is tender, heart wrenching and honest.
The characters were brought to life incredibly well and in particular I enjoyed the difference in the generations and cultures of the characters Hana for example brought up in Korea and Ada brought up in the UK. Hana having adjusted well to life in the UK and her mother Youngja who was unable to communicate in English.

This is a story of motherhood, with themes of shame and secrecy. As we uncover truths behind what happened in the story and who was responsible it is truly shocking and revealing.

It will take me a long time to recover from this read and I will never forget these characters.

There’s no doubt for me this is a five star read. It reminded me in parts of Mongrel by Hanako Footman another of my favourite books.

Minbak was everything that I hoped it would be. I love a novel which spans across multiple generations - think 'Pachinko' or 'Memphis'.

In Minbak we follow three generations of the Park family throughout their lives, watching how the decisions they make go on to affect the entire family. Youngja, running a Minbak in Incheon, as she struggles to feed her young family. Hana, living in London with Ada, her teenage daughter, left in disarray after the death of her husband leaves behind a massive debt. And running through it all, an undercurrent of secrets and betrayal.

The Parks are a complicated family, but the relationships between mother and daughter, grandmother and granddaughter, are beautiful and nuanced. Even as I watched the family make impossible choices, I rooted for them all, even when there were conflicting motives and outcomes.

We get further snippets from other members of the community through this book - such as a young woman working in an orphanage, another who 'organises' international adoptions, and a journalist uncovering the dubious motives behind this business. This fleshes out the book and provides us with information that our core characters are unable to access.

This brilliant, thought provoking book will stay on my mind for some time.

Minbak by Ela Lee is moving, poignant and resonant. The story follows three generations of Korean women as they traverse the challenges of political upheaval in 1980s Korea, to the isolation and tragedy in London years later, when their life comes full circle. A poignant narrative of the effect of gllobal issues on the individual at a time when it could not be more important. Certainly a book for our time and all time

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House UK, Vintage | Harvill and the author Ela Lee for this stunning ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

‘Minbak’ by Ela Lee is a gem of a novel. Elegant, deeply moving, and quietly powerful. I could spend days discussing it, dedicate tomes to enthusing over its subtle brilliance, but all I really need to say is this: Read it!

The plot is simple. In Incheon, South Korea, in the 1980s, after falling on hard times, a family is forced to turn their home into a minbak—a guesthouse. Twenty years later, following a tragedy, the daughter of that family finds herself recreating the arrangement in London, this time with her teenage daughter and her ageing mother, who is living with Alzheimer’s. With three generations of women sharing one room, the past echoes through the present, leading to secrets being revealed and old wounds confronted. There are no shocks or big twists. Even the most dramatic moments retain a quiet subtlety. The novel’s beauty lies in its relationships, its characters’ lived experiences, and its thoughtful exploration of love, grief, memory, and identity.

Lee’s prose is simple yet vivid. A line such as “He was a smile surrounded by a person” perfectly captures her precision and economy. The characters are beautifully realised, with each feeling real and distinct, while the shifts across voices and time unfold with impressive fluidity. Equally notable is how the novel engages with numerous themes without ever feeling crowded or imbalanced. Coming-of-age narratives, the immigrant experience, kindnesses wrapped in betrayals, and the complexity of mother-daughter relationships—all are given their due weight; all weave together seamlessly.

‘Minbak’ really is a special book—one that lingers long after the final page, and one I am certain to return to. For readers drawn to Korean literature and multi-generational narratives—particularly those centred on mothers and daughters—it is a must-read.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Ela Lee and Harvill for the ARC. My review will be posted on Instagram, Amazon UK, Goodreads and The StoryGraph near or on the publication date.

I enjoyed Jaded by Ela Lee and this new book Minbak is even better. It is so emotional and I needed a while to collect my thoughts after finishing it. I will definitely be keeping an eye for any future releases by her.

A Minbak is a Korean boarding house where the family would live closely together and rent the other rooms out and we follow three generations of women that have run these to make ends meet.

The exploration of relationships across cultures and time is beautiful, as well as shining a light on a lot of sad history that was unknown to me. Lee captures relationships and the reasons we might make the choices we do so well.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy.

I LOVED jaded and so i was so excited for this one . It's such a different type of story to her first novel but it is most definitely just as good.

The writing is beautiful and it gives the reader such a sense of place as you read . I don't know much about South Korean culture and this book allows you to learn . You get to know about the political unrest , the society and also the food! At the same time you become immersed in the family and the daily lives of these characters . It's a book you want to pick up what you are not reading , it's a book you will feel sad when you have finished and it's a novel I would love to see on screen !

An intimate portrait of three generations of South Korean women, Minbak is quietly heartbreaking while still threaded with hope. Spanning 1985 to 2008, it offers an in-depth exploration of each woman’s life and the ways in which wider society shapes their choices and circumstances.

Ela Lee tackles difficult subjects — from economic crises and immigration to the unexpected deaths of loved ones — with sensitivity and restraint. The result is a stunning, lyrical novel that lingers long after the final page. I would not be surprised to see it nominated for awards this year.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harvill for the ARC.