Beat the heat with these new releases that introduce us to characters from war-torn homelands, modern-day corporate life, and interstellar conflicts. Each literary adventure dives deep into how history, love, culture, and identity shape who we are and who we choose to become.
Featured Review
“Flashlight”
Susan Choi
Literary Fiction
(June 3, 2025, FSG)
This sweeping novel illuminates slices of history that for the most part continue to remain hidden. With alternating perspectives, it follows Serk starting from the mid 20th century as a young boy in Japan, where his Korean family has fled for greater opportunities. Yet when they encounter discrimination and hardship — and lured by North Korea’s promise of stability and a new future — they embark on yet another displacement. Serk will have none of it, though, and he sets off on his own journey to the U.S., where he marries Anne, a white American, and has a daughter with her, Louisa.
The opening scene sets up the central question of the novel: Serk and 10-year-old Louisa are taking an evening stroll on the beach in Japan, where Serk has been posted for a year by his university. The evening ends with Serk missing and Louisa half-drowned, and the novel explores how the lives of Anne, Louisa, and Anne’s son by a prior liaison, Tobias, unfold after this tragedy.
The strengths of the book are the historical angles and how it goes to unexpected, forgotten places. I loved how the titular flashlight reoccurs throughout the book as a physical object and as a metaphor. Even though Choi keeps the characters at an emotional distance, the ending made me tear up, which speaks to Choi’s skill in crafting a zinger of a narrative arc. Readers willing to parse the density of the writing will be rewarded by some beautiful sentences, as well as by a sobering, heartwrenching look at how the tides of history can shatter a family.
-Kristin T. Lee
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