Crystal Hana Kim seamlessly maneuvers between narrators in this intergenerational saga about the Korean War of the 1950s and the lives caught in it. Our first storyteller is Haemi, who sets aside her defiant nature and love for her childhood best friend Kyunghwan to marry his cousin, Jisoo. Jisoo promises financial safety for Haemi and her sickly brother, a difficult guarantee to make in wartime. Kim follows this family through the years with heartrending prose, detailing the anguish of star-crossed love and familial duty. “If You Leave Me” is a story about how insidious war can be, how it can continue to fracture a family a generation after the fighting. It's a stunning feat of lyricism, an enthralling, tragic novel brimming with angst and remorse.