October 2026

Min Jin Lee's last book, PACHINKO, came out in 2017, which in many ways feels like a lifetime ago. So I assumed that whatever she wrote next would both feel and be big. I am not talking about the page count, but rather the storyline, the complexity of the characters, and the messaging that she wanted to share.

The focus in AMERICAN HAGWON is on education, which starts young. It is not just about learning, but also about achievement. Mediocrity is unacceptable. Good is unacceptable. Very good is unacceptable. There is a quest for the promised land --- that of a select group of Ivy League colleges that have been noted as the only way that success will be achieved. 

What will contribute to that success? After-school programs called hagwons, which foster the kind of student to which these schools are attracted. But we all know that colleges do not accept everyone, and often they do not make the best matches for students. There are cultures, though, where anything else will feel like failure. Hagwons are huge in South Korea as the culture there promotes education, especially the goal of a “good school” in the United States.

That's the concept, but the plot is much bigger as it was with PACHINKO. It spans two decades and brings readers inside the lives of a multi-character list moving from 1992 to 2007. They live in a myriad of places, including New Jersey, Sydney, Seoul and southern California --- and we see the challenges that each of these locations will bring to them. 

I love the philosophy that one of the characters, Lion, brings to the American hagwon experience. He wants children to fall in love with the idea of learning and discovery, and then be able to apply that to any job and any life, not just one at the prized few schools. Learning to love learning for its own sake --- what a unique thought! 

Here's how much I enjoyed AMERICAN HAGWON. I took a week off this summer to read, and I was trying to cover as much as possible. This was the longest book that I was reading, but it also was the one that I brought with me to bed each night until I finished it, no matter what I had read all day. It's a great commentary on what we really want to share with kids about what success looks and feels like.