I Leave It Up to You
A Novel
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- USD 10.99
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- USD 10.99
Publisher Description
From the award-winning author of Flux comes “an endearing novel about second chances” (The Washington Post), with wise insights into love, family, and the art of sushi.
“Wise and poignant [with] mouthwatering descriptions of food . . . I Leave It Up to You is about finding—or rediscovering—the people who make hardship worth enduring.”—Bobby Finger, The New York Times Book Review
A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.
Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night’s pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, too: that of romantic interest to the nurse who took care of him, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.
There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
After the oddly perfect mix of sci-fi and neo-noir in Jinwoo Chong’s debut novel, Flux, this dark-hued rom-com feels like a surprising but ideal follow-up. Thirtyish Korean American Jack Jr. wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how or why he’s there. It turns out that he’s been in a coma for nearly two years and has lost everything in the meantime: his Manhattan apartment, his advertising job, and most importantly, his husband, Ren. Reluctantly returning to his long-estranged immigrant family and their sushi restaurant in New Jersey, Jack Jr. begins the tender, often funny process of working on his damaged relationships while forging an unexpected bond with his teen nephew and maybe connecting with his charmingly anxious nurse. Weaving serious themes like racism, homophobia, and the general messiness of post-pandemic life into a familiar rom-com story arc, Chong has created an emotionally complex story that’s genuinely uplifting. This is a truly lovely read about finding and building connections in an imperfect world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A gay Korean American man wakes up from a coma and reckons with unresolved family issues in this perceptive story of arrested development from Chong (Flux). Jack Jr., the 30-year-old narrator, has no recollection of the car accident that put him in the hospital two years earlier, and his family is silent about the whereabouts of his fiancé, Ren. Told that he's lost his copywriting job along with his Manhattan apartment, he reluctantly moves back in with his parents in Fort Lee, N.J., the hometown he fled at 18 after refusing to take over the family sushi restaurant. Now, with nothing else to do and heartbroken to learn Ren has married someone else, he starts pitching in at the restaurant. His parents remain reticent, however, preferring to act like he'd never left. Just as he begins to settle back into his old life, he starts a new romance. Torn once again between forging a new path and meeting his family's expectations, he realizes he's never really matured. Chong expertly captures the family's complicated dynamics and ratchets up the tension as they finally break the silence about the past. It's a satisfying drama.
