When June is diagnosed with cancer, the sisters’ long-held beliefs about each other are tested, and deeper questions reveal themselves that they must unravel in the midst of crisis. Choi is so adept at crafting beautifully imperfect, real characters that I half expected to get a text from one of them while listening. Their adversarial relationship is crystallized in their formative years while living in Texas after the family’s immigration from Seoul. In Jayne and June’s case, trauma creates another dynamic, fostering divides and decades of hidden and not-so-hidden resentments, judgments, and consequences. Yolk acquaints us with two sisters who lead starkly different lives but remain inextricably linked, not only through DNA but also a history spanning the mundane and the unforgivable. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her.įlung together by circumstance, housing woes, and family secrets, will the sisters learn more about each other than they’re willing to confront? And what if while helping June, Jayne has to confront the fact that maybe she’s sick, too? Once thick as thieves, these sisters who moved from Seoul to San Antonio to New York together now don’t want anything to do with each other. Jayne is an emotionally stunted, self-obsessed basket case who lives in squalor, has egregious taste in men, and needs to get to class and stop wasting Mom and Dad’s money (if you ask June). June’s three years older, a classic first-born, know-it-all narc with a problematic finance job and an equally soulless apartment (according to Jayne).

Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters and how far they’ll go to save one of their lives - even if it means swapping identities.

“Sneaks up on you with its insight and poignancy.” ( Entertainment Weekly )įrom New York Times best-selling author Mary H.K.

Yolk mary hk choi