Summary and Reviews of Flashlight by Susan Choi

Media Reviews

Boston Globe Choi's elegant writing is evident in this ambitious tale ... A propulsive story about family secrets and displacement.

Chicago Review of Books Magnificent ... An ode to the difficult choices we make to build a life and the ways in which they all can come falling down in a moment.

Literary Hub Aching, beautiful, utterly compelling.

Shelf Awareness In this gripping novel, Susan Choi's seemingly disparate clues coalesce in a tale of espionage and global conflict, and the heartrending ways in which world struggles play out in individual lives.

The Atlantic Pack[s] an astonishing amount of beauty and meaning.

NPR A story that draws on geopolitics even as it obsessively returns to a single family catastrophe ... Shocking.

BookPage An astute portrait of political upheaval, family dynamics and the constant need to recalibrate one's expectations. The novel is an intellectual work-out, but a rewarding one.

New York Magazine In Choi's novels, memory is fallible, people are not always who they seem to be, and the past can always be counted on to force its way back into the present. This makes her books hard to write about but a lot of fun to think about and to read.

The Maris Review A great big ambitious novel ... Flashlight is that elusive type of book that so many readers I know are always looking for: a big fat novel to get lost in.

Booklist (starred review) [Choi is] a writer at the top of her game, capable of crafting a well-plotted and complex story while remaining attuned to small internal motivations, along with intersectional and cultural liminalities, those edges between surf and sand where so much violence happens, as much to bodies as to hearts, minds, and homes.

Publishers Weekly Though long sections of character development often fail to gel with the main events, Choi's well-shaded characters are also the book's strongest element...This gripping story of a family in crisis is tough to shake.

Kirkus Reviews This is not an easy novel, but it has important things to say, and Choi is a writer you can trust to make the journey worthwhile. Never sentimental, never predictable, this aptly titled novel illuminates dark passages both fictional and real.

Library Journal Choi's follow-up to Trust Exercises proves she's a writer at the top of her game, capable of crafting a well-plotted and complex story while remaining attuned to small internal motivations, along with intersectional and cultural liminalities, those edges between surf and sand where so much violence happens, as much to bodies as to hearts, minds, and homes.

 Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls In a brilliant feat of storytelling, both intimate and sweeping, Susan Choi has created a profoundly moving epic that blends a tender family portrait with a haunting examination of the Korean diaspora. Flashlight is that rare novel that has everything I want in fiction: gorgeous writing, fascinating characters I fell in love with, an immersive, addictive story with an ending that made me gasp, then cry. I'm in awe.

 Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood In this superbly crafted book, the fraught geopolitics of family life―the official secrets, the acts of espionage, the diplomatic failures―are set against the intimacies, grievances, conflicting memories, and unmet needs of national allegiance. Ferociously smart and full of surprises, Flashlight is thrilling to the last.

 Jennifer Egan, author of The Candy House Flashlight is instantly bewitching: a mysterious family tragedy whose solution reaches beyond psychology into geopolitics. Susan Choi's fictional investigation reveals a writer at the height of her spectacular powers.

Reader Reviews

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