What readers think of Flashlight, plus links to write your own review.

Magnificent, epic exploration of a family fractured by familial and political trauma. Includes discussion of the Japanese Abduction Project, when Japanese citizens were abducted and taken to North Korea in the 1970’s to teach Japanese to North Korean spy schools. This was suspected, but not admitted to until 2002, and was previously known to me. Although none of the main characters is likeable, I felt compassion for them and their circumstances. I am retired, and read obsessively, and this is by far the best book I have read all year. If you are going to listen to the audiobook, you will definitely appreciate and enjoy Eunice Wong’s fine narration.

This is a tough one to review. At nearly 500 pages it is meaty, weighty, intense, gorgeously written, and wonderfully plotted. At the same time, it can be ponderous and a little confusing. There is no doubt that this book will reward readers of intelligent historical literary fiction and I know I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come. The story takes us through what appears to be the unexplained and horrific drowning of a young Japanese-born ethnic Korean man while he is walking on a Japanese beach with his 10-year-old daughter while his American disabled wife waits at home. That synopsis does little to encompass this sweeping historical narrative that Choi tells about what happened to stateless ethnic Koreans in Japan after the war; how memory tricks us and confuses us into believing things that weren’t there or are not true; and how decades pass while family come in and out of each other’s lives.