I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Little, Brown Book Group, and the author You-Jeong Jeong.
I really enjoyed this thriller, it was full of suspense and gripped me from the very start.
I found it particularly fascinating to read crime fiction from Korea, my first experience of this setting and style.
The progression and development of the story and the presentation of Yu-Jin, the main character, was incredibly creepy and I can see why it has been so popular. Recommended for a slightly different take on the traditional psychological thriller.

Wow! I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. The story follows Yu-Jin, a 26 year old man, who wakes up one morning with very little memory of the night before and the belief that he’s had a seizure, the result of missed medication. When he discovers the dead body of his mother in the flat, he begins to question himself, and his life.
This is such a tense, claustrophobic book. I could see where the story was heading but that didn’t at all detract from my enjoyment of the journey, and it didn’t stop me being invested in the story or the characters. I can absolutely understand why this book has received such high praise in its native Korea, and will definitely be keeping my eye out for more titles by this author in the future.
Thanks to Little, Brown and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest review.

When Yu-jin wakes up, he needs some time to orient himself. But: where does all the blood come from? He is obviously not hurt, but what happened the evening before? When he explores the home, he finds his mother stabbed. Was there some burglary he cannot remember? Yet, there are no signs of any break-in. Did he himself do it? He is confused and not a single memory of the hours before he fell asleep will come back. The body has to disappear, otherwise he would obviously be the main suspect. Nevertheless, he tries to enquire the murder and therefore searches his mother’s room where he finds her diaries – notes that will reveal a lot to him about his family, his step-brother and first of all, about himself.

At the beginning of “The good son”, the reader is as confused as the protagonist. He seems to be quite likeable, therefore you first reject the idea of him being a murderer. However, your view of Yu-jin will change a lot, the more you learn about him the more you have to adapt your opinion – not only while reading more of his thoughts on that morning when he makes a body disappear and gets himself deeper and deeper in trouble, but first and foremost when reading the mother’s diaries. That’s when the novel turns into a highly psychological analysis of a young and promising man who doesn’t know himself as good as he thought he would.

The plot develops a fascinating cruelty which completely drags you along. The emotions you feel are highly contradictory, between pity and disgust, between the hope that he will get away with it and at the same time that the police come to arrest him. Even though his action is absolutely comprehensible and logical, you reject it, too. I really like those kinds of novels which keep you oscillating emotionally.

It is absolutely a crime noir and definitely quite “Asian” in a certain way. Not only the family structures and the pressure on the members differs at lot from our western view, but also the rules according to which people act are different and make the characters sometimes act in an unexpected way. Just as the characters are finely modelled, the plot can amaze a lot and thus offers a lot of unexpected surprises.

An unusual but very good book, with a different perspective on a murder mystery novel. I liked the setting as well. Recommended

Based on a true story and described as 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' meets 'The Bad Seeds,' The Good Son by best-selling Korean author You-Jeong Jeong is an addictive, slow-burning psychological thriller that gripped me from the first page.

When twenty-six-year-old student Yu-Jin wakes one morning to a metallic smell and finds himself covered in blood, he wonders if he's still dreaming or if he's had one of his epileptic seizures. On leaving his bedroom, however, Yu-Jin makes a gruesome discovery; his mother's been murdered, her throat having been slit. Obviously something horrific happened the previous night but Yu-Jin has no recollection of what took place.

Yu-Jin's initial reaction is to phone the police, however, he quickly realises that if he does so, he'll be their prime suspect. Instead he decides to wait a while but as he uses that time to try to piece together what unfolded, Yu-Jin begins to wonder if he is the culprit. Could he really have murdered his own mother?

Once an award-winning swimmer, Yu-Jin was forced to give up the sport he loved; partly because of his epilepsy, partly because of his mother's fears and as the novel progresses and we learn both his father and brother drowned in a tragic accident, it seems his mother's fears aren't unfounded. Yet having suffered from seizures all his life, Yu-Jin's often had trouble with his memory and while it's easy to feel empathy toward him, you can't help but wonder if his narrative is one you should believe.

Upon discovering his mother's journal, Yu-Jin's given alternative explanations for his memories and as his life story is revealed we, as readers, begin to comprehend the extent of the secrets and lies his mother and aunt convinced him to be his truth.

With this novel the question isn't really who committed the murder, the question is why, and the author's done a wonderful job of crafting a complex, multi-layered plot featuring some clever twists to give us that answer.

Note: Many thanks to the author and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is a compelling slow paced thriller, that holds your attention.
When it picks up pace, it becomes dark, sinister, unique and unputdownable
Definitely one for the to read list

Thank you netgalley, little Brown book group and You-Jeong Jeong for allowing me to read and review this book.

The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong, translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim, is a psychological thriller that has been compared to American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, Misery by Stephen King and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and, since two of these novels are among my favourite books of all time, I was very intrigued to read it. Moreover, it's a work in translation, and You-jeong Jeong is described as one of the leading psychological crime fiction authors in South Korea.

I don't read a lot of thrillers, and, in those rare cases that I do, I find it hard to review them without giving away major plot points. I find that, in most cases, there is not much to talk about in terms of themes and symbolism, so I can only judge these books based on whether they succeeds at what they essentially set out to do - to tell a thrilling and suspenseful story that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The Good Son is narrated in the first person by Yu-jin, a 25-year old college student and former swimming champion, who lives with his widowed mother and adopted brother Hae-jin, who in many ways resembles Yu-jin's deceased older brother. The book opens with Yu-jin waking up one day, covered in blood, and finding the body of his mother, who clearly has been murdered. We soon learn that Yu-jin suffers from a condition that requires him to use medication to prevent seizures an blackouts, but a side effect of the pills is that they make him lethargic, so he sometimes secretly goes for days without taking them. When he finds his murdered mother's body, he quickly realizes that he will become the prime suspect of the murder investigation, so he struggles to piece together what actually happened from the fragments of his memories and his mother's diary entries.

I think that, even if you're not a crime fiction enthusiast, you might be able to guess, fairly accurately, how this story is going to unfold, based on just the few pieces of information provided in the synopsis. Despite the fact that this is thriller, I found the pacing of the book to be very slow, and, apart from some truly intense and chilling moments, I felt that the narrative was going in circles between each point when some new and exciting piece of information is revealed. I must admit that I wasn't particularly surprised by the revelations. The hints that are left throughout the book made it pretty obvious, however, I found the character of Yu-jin quite fascinating and convincing. From the very start, you get the sense that he might be an unreliable narrator, and I was intrigued to find out how he will react and deal with the unfolding situation. The story is set over the course of just a few days, and it feels like you are stuck in Yu-jin mind that gives the book a rather claustrophobic atmosphere. While I found the overall plot to be quite predictable, the book really succeeds as a dark character study.

* Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book via NetGalley.

Yu-Jin, a young man with epilepsy who, one morning, wakes to a metallic smell, and finds blood everywhere. He finds the body of his murdered mother and himself covered in blood. He has no memory of what happened, but cleans up and hides the body. He tries to piece together what happened, but wonders if he is the villain of the piece. You-Jeong Jeong tells complex tale that tries to give us a deeper understanding of Yu-Jin and his past. There are plenty of twists to you keep you guessing. A great read.

First of all, thank you so much to Grace Vincent and Little, Brown publishers for providing me with a digital copy of this astounding novel from "the Korean Stephen King," in exchange for an honest review. When Grace first emailed me and I read the comparison to King above, well of course I had to have it! As a die-hard Constant Reader (King fan) anything that is compared to my all-time favourite author, I have to check out. Now, I normally hate comparisons to other books or authors but this one I didn't mind so much. I think because it was compared to King and my expectations are astronomically high when it comes to him, I was too curious to see how You-jeong Jeong would measure up. And did she? Well, I would say absolutely yes. However, I feel like her novel stood completely on its own as a twisted, dark tale that wasn't reminiscent of King's work in my opinion, but a great example of a unique author with an individual, quirky style.

I don't want to go too deep into the synopsis as I believe the one above taken from Goodreads describes this novel more than adequately without me giving any more detail. In fact, this is one of those books where you've got to be incredibly careful exactly what you say, because you could be giving away major spoilers. However, never fear, I'm not one to be doing that and I will be as deliberately vague as possible. Set in South Korea, we have our unreliable narrator, Yu-jin who finds his mother's lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs in his house and has no memory of the previous nights events, apart from going running late at night. Our male lead has suffered with seizures and memory loss for as long as he can remember and although he is on tablets that are meant to control/stop his episodes, he goes for periods where he doesn't take them at all as taking the medication gives him debilitating headaches. As the narrative continues, we get glimpses into Yu-jin's childhood and the present day as he attempts to remember what happened to his mother as ever so slowly, the memories start trickling back.

I was very worried about writing this review but I'm relieved to realise that as soon as I sat down, everything I wanted to say (without giving away major spoilers) just managed to flow (PHEW!). I was hugely impressed by this novel and it's one that has continued to stay with me, despite having read it a few weeks ago now. I think this is for a number of reasons - first, the unreliable narrator, secondly, the brutality of the story and thirdly, the multiple surprises that are round every corner. The way in which the information is fed to you by the author is nothing short of spectacular and you become desperate to discover exactly what's going on in Yu-Jin's head and what has occurred in his past to get him to the situation in which he finds himself at the beginning of the story. It's not a story for the faint-hearted, I have to say. There is violence, graphic and shocking details of this violence and characters that crawl under your skin, give you goosebumps and make you shiver.

This novel starts as a slow burner but please don't let that put you off. You-jeong Jeong expertly builds and weaves all the necessary parts of this jigsaw puzzle of a story piece by piece. This is absolutely necessary in my opinion to construct a tense and creepy atmosphere where you'll be glad certain characters in this story exist only in this book, it's that terrifying.

English-speaking readers finally have a chance to experience the atmospheric and provocative storytelling of award-winning South Korean crime writer You-Jeong Jeong, with THE GOOD SON her first novel to be translated into English (she’s already been translated into several other languages).

A young man who has suffered from seizures and a mysterious ailment throughout his life wakes in a bloodied haze, only to discover his mother’s razor-slashed body at the bottom of the stairs of the house they share near the Incheon waterfront outside of Seoul. He has snatched memories of his mother calling his name the night before: did she need his help, or his mercy? Realizing a call to the police would mean instant arrest, he spends the next days cleaning up, fending off his family’s calls, and trying to work out just what happened. He was once the good son, but is he now a killer? Who can he trust?

Yeong (and Kim’s translation) takes readers on a confronting ride into mental illness, twisted family relationships, and the unclear realm of memory vs reality. Guided by the first-person narration of an unreliable, tormented young man, readers are plunged into a harrowing tale that builds in an elegant and disturbing way. We slowly uncover the truth, via the young man’s skewed perspective, with plenty of secrets and horrors being revealed. A creepy psychological thriller from a master storyteller.

The book is slow to start however picks up as the narrator pieces together his memories and what actually happened. It raises a lot of questions on how far a parent would go to protect their child..

This slow-burning novel has the most intriguing opening, and what follows is a compelling tale of self-exploration. Through the situation Yu-jin finds himself in, he takes the reader on a journey as he tries to piece together the events in his life that led to this moment, the moment he wakes covered in blood, and equally important, how to survive this moment. The Good Son is dubbed as a thriller, but the thrills aren’t found in the pacing, as this one is of a slower pace, the thrills come in the sinister revelations.

The tension in this novel is created through Yu-jin’s faulty memory, it created a heightened anxiety around our main protagonist because you’re unsure whether you can trust him – how much of what he says is truth and how much is lies – we know Yu-Jin experiences a manic state, brought on by not taking his medication, what we don’t know is how much he pushes the boundaries on reality during his memory recall.

As the plot thickens, you’re constantly wondering how Yu-jin is going to survive this. What’s quite incredible about this book is how much of the time it’s just you and Yu-jin, with very limited characters, you really get to know Yu-jin, and be prepared because he’s walking a dark path. Not only is this book limited in characters, it’s also limited in location, with much of the story taking place inside Yu-Jin’s apartment, which he shares with his brother and mother. This creates an intense setting for this drama to play out, there is no reprieve from the tormented mind of Yu-Jin.

As the narration switches between the past and the present, The Good Son provides an in-depth character study of Yu-jin, exploring his own psyche and his complex family relations. It’s cleverly told, sharp [and bloody] in descriptive detail, made all the more chilling as it’s inspired by a true story.

I was keen to read this book, but at the same time part of me was prepared for it to be in the same vein as many of the over hyped and disappointing thrillers we seem to be getting in the last few years. It was a pleasant surprise when the book turned out to be more poised and thoughtful than most of the notable recent thrillers. Recommended.

Good premise, and well written. Only thing that didn't work for me was the manner of the flashbacks our main character has to earlier situations, during what are otherwise tense scenes. This is the case right from the start, as he's waking up, seeing the blood splattered all over, memory blank from chunks of last night, and constantly drifts off into instances of "I remember when..." This detracted from the pace, and also a little from my enjoyment of what is otherwise a decent read.

How far will you go to protect your children? Even if you're unsure if you know them completely or not? Interesting story here and I enjoyed it over all.

This is a strange story. It sent shivers down my spine. You-jin tells us his story a piece at a time. It is a chilling story. This is definitely a thought provoking read.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

The Good Son is an unusual and compelling crime novel about the love a mother has for her children and the lengths she will go to in order to protect her son. Written by a Korean author, it is a deeply disturbing novel that will keep the reader guessing til the end.

The first of the authors four novels to be translated from Korean to English, 'The Good Son' is a psychological thriller featuring an unreliable narrator that is apparently inspired by a true story.

It begins with Yu-Jin awakening one morning, with no recollection of what has happened the night before, to find the dead body of his mother downstairs. Over the course of a few days, we follow Yu-Jin fulfilling dual roles as both potential suspect and also detective as he tries to piece together what has happened. Using fragments of his own memories that gradually come back to him and also with the help of information that he finds in his mother's journals, the findings are as much a mystery to him and they are to the reader. This is an interesting take on this genre and probably what I enjoyed most about 'The Good Son'. My biggest issue with it was the writing style in the beginning, which was somewhat stunted, which is perhaps a translation issue rather than an issue with the authors writing? I'm unsure.

However, this does lessen as we progress with the story, which is actually somewhat of a slow burner considering it's classified as a thriller. The plot really picks up in the second half where some scenes are quite electrifying to read and I really wish there had been more of that. The author has a gift for writing scenes of pursual - the novel and indeed Yu-Jin, as befitting his character, really comes to life during these moments. Events up until that point were more centred on a lot of Yu-Jin's internal monologue, a fair bit of exposition, and a great deal of speculation based on what he thinks he knows, what he discovers, and how it all eventually comes together.

If you're interested in the psychological aspect of thrillers then give this a shot, however if you're looking for an action based plot then this might be too slow a build up for you.


~Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I am not associated with the author or publisher in any way. My opinion is completely unbiased and entirely my own~

"I was the investigator interrogating the criminal. But the two were one and the same, the criminal had a slippery relationship with the truth, and his memory was spotty."

"It would take something special to make Yu-jin’s pulse quicken. I’m afraid because I don’t know what that might be."

정유정 (Jeong You-jeong) is described by her UK publisher as "South Korea’s leading writer of psychological crime and thriller fiction. She is often compared to Stephen King." I suspect most readers will be pulled in by the Stephen King comparison, whereas for me the attraction of the novel is the Korean angle, as a fan of Korean literary fiction. In that regard I am perhaps not the target audience for the book, as in pure literary terms, this is not, and does not purport to be, in the same class as Bae Suah, Han Kang or Hwang Sok-yong say.

This is however a satisfyingly intense psychological thriller, not so much a whodunnit but a whydidhedoit, or in fact a whydidIdoit. The novel is narrated in the first person, over the course of a few days, by 25 year-old 한유진 (Han Yu-jin), a former schoolboy champion swimmer now living with his widowed mother and Hae-jin his adopted brother (what happened to his father and his biological brother, being a crucial part of the narrative).

The Korean title of the original novel is 종의 기원, which is the Korean rendition of Darwin's The Origin of Species, and in the English version the title of the last section of the novel, as Yu-jin takes inspiration: "Darwin’s maxim came to mind: adapt or die".

The English version has been retitled The Good Son (I do wish publisher's wouldn't do this) and ably translated by Chi-Young Kim, perhaps best known as translated of Please Look After Mother as well as The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly.

It opens with Yu-jin wakening in his house, confused and disorientated:

"The smell of blood woke me. It was intense, as though my whole body were inhaling it. It reverberated and expanded within me. Strange scenes flitted through my mind – the fuzzy yellow light of a row of street lamps in the fog, swirling water below my feet, a crimson umbrella rolling along a rain-soaked road, a plastic tarpaulin shrouding a construction site snapping in the wind. Somewhere a man was singing and slurring lyrics: a song about a girl he couldn’t forget, and about her walking in the rain."

We and he soon find out (no spoiler alert needed at this stage) that the smell of blood comes from his murdered mother's body:

"I looked back down at the razor in my hand. Clues to who had killed Mother were all over the place, including the decisive evidence of the murder weapon. Without a single clue pointing to a different conclusion, I would be implicated. How would Hae-jin take this? No matter what he asked me, I could only answer one way – I don’t remember a thing. The time-worn excuse made by thousands of criminals over thousands of years."

Yu-jin then gradually pieces together what must have happened, fills us (and himself as he discovers some secrets in his mother's diary) on his life to this point, and then decides what he must do to "adapt or die".

One interesting note that may not be known by English readers is that the author took inspiration from a real-life case, that of 유영철 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoo_Young-chul). For example, the song Vangelis's "Conquest of Paradise" - on which Yu-jin's ipod playlist has stopped, allowing him to reconstruct a timeline of what had happened the night before - is a song that Yoo Young-chul listened to to psyche himself up before he embarked on his sprees.

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group, via Netgalley, for the ARC.

This is a murder novel where the murderer gradually reconstructs his own crime. Masterful writing gradually, yet tensely, brings the whole picture into focus and the truth is truly horrifying. Then there is the analysis and dissection of the source and ultimate driver of the crime - the murderer's mind. Extremely well paced this story in reverse is utterly riveting and the Little,Brown Book Group are to be congratulated on introducing us to You-jeong Jeong.