Review by Freya Bennett // photograph by Kristen Fedor
Jinwoo Chong’s I Leave It Up to You is his second novel and my first experience with his wonderful writing. The premise immediately drew me in—a man waking up from a two-year coma, having missed the major events of the pandemic—yet despite its intriguing concept, the story unfolds at a calm, steady pace. It’s not a page-turner in the traditional sense, but rather a quiet companion I kept returning to, drawn in by its deeply human characters and their layered, realistic relationships.
Jack Jr. wakes to find his fiancée absent and his estranged family unwilling to explain why. With nowhere else to go, he moves back to New Jersey, slipping back into his old life at his family’s sushi restaurant, where his muscle memory revives all that his father once taught him. Despite a decade away in New York City, the rhythms of home pull him back in. This is a story of love, loss, and the quiet, imperfect bonds of family. The growing friendship between Jack and his former nurse is a tender highlight, a much-needed bubble of hope within the novel’s introspective tone. And let me tell you—it has one of the best and most satisfying last lines I’ve read in a long time.
Chong’s writing is beautifully understated. His portrayal of family is masterful, capturing the nuance of loving dysfunction—where flaws don’t diminish love but coexist with it. I was completely enamored by these relationships, by the way acceptance and tension intertwine so naturally.
I can’t wait to pick up Flux, Chong’s debut novel. He’s a writer I’ll be eagerly following.
