Well, the blurb says the book is “The Talented Mr. Ripley” meets “The Bad Seed”. I haven’t watched both films so I have zero clue whatsoever in that aspect. The blurb also says the author is Korea’s Stephen King. Now, we’re talking. But it’s not the Stephen King part that caught my attention, as I have yet to read any of his books. *hides* It’s actually the part that the book is translated to English from Korean that piqued my interest. Because like so many Filipinos, I am a prolific fan of anything Korean. And the author seems to know that piece of info very well, as our country gets a shoutout in the book, hah! Anyway, this translated book is like the much needed subtitles on my kdrama.

Moving on about the book itself. The book is about Yu-jin who is a full-grown man with a 9PM curfew. He is living with his mom and older brother in a decent duplex in a building near a sea wall. His mom is more strict to him than to his older brother because Yu-jin is epileptic. At the beginning of the book, he is laying still on his bed in the early hours of the morning, having unsettling hallucinations from prolonged getting off from his meds, bracing himself from a severe bout of seizures. Why would he intentionally stop taking his seizure meds, you ask? It’s his weird way of getting floaty and free; kinda getting high. Whenever he is off his drugs, he reaches a heightened reality; his senses become acute. But then he is interrupted by a call from his brother who is away for work. Their mom uncharacteristically left a missed call in the middle of the night, so he wants to check if everything’s okay back at home. As it turns out, everything’s not okay. Yu-jin soon discovers their mother downstairs, lying dead on her own pool of blood. He has to figure out who is the murderer before his older brother returns home.

Interestingly enough, it’s only about 20% through the book when the identity of the killer is revealed. The book is unique for me because it focused on the why instead of the who. It explored what can lead a supposedly upstanding citizen commit such a horrible act. It lets the reader take a close look in the mind of an often one-dimensionally vilified character; a personality boxed inside its label. The book made the readers realize that this type of person interprets things differently as we do. Acts of love and concern could be interpreted as deception and betrayal. And despite distorted perceptions, this person is often alone and maybe feeling lonely, too. I would not call it empathy per se but I think I understood this type of character a bit better.

If you thought that the book has nothing going on after the whodunit reveal, well you better brace yourself. There are flashbacks. There are diary entries. There are confrontations. But for me, the book is strongest when the killer is in introspection, taking a deep look in the mirror, asking the question, “Who am I?” And then after answering that question, the book presents a point of crossroads for the killer asking, “Who will you be?” The book is very much character-driven in a chilling way. Like I said, the suspense is in the unfolding of the why and what the killer would do upon discovering the horrifying truth.

So if you are also an anything-Korean fan and loves mystery-thrillers, read this book is what I’m saying.

What makes a narrator credible? How is that relationship built between reader and storyteller?

Told through flashbacks, memory slips, fantasies, hallucinations, and journal entries, You-Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son is a Korean thriller with a most unreliable narrator. College student Yu-Jin has woken up covered in blood and his morning gets more puzzling, dark, and creepy when he finds his mother with her throat cut at the bottom of the stairs.

Living his life in a muddled cloud because of medication for epilepsy, he decided to stop taking his pills four days ago. With stopping cold turkey comes memory loss and other costly side effects, and he can’t recall his actions of the past twenty-four hours. Yu-Jin starts to try to recreate the previous night using evidence in the apartment, and his mother’s journal. Some of the blanks start to fill up, and more is revealed about his and his family’s mangled past. As Yu-Jin slowly discovers that he may be the culprit, he begins to see he has three options: confess, run, or cover it up…

Jeong’s novel is most distinguished by the unique narrator. Yu-Jin is untrustworthy, manipulating, and dismissive of most things the reader wants him to concentrate on. This creates a good frustration, the type that propels a plot and makes us turn pages. And while I won’t give anything up, about halfway through, the other shoe drops. A huge shoe! I also warn you: There is blood. Lots of it. Graphic pails of blood.

The Good Son is a thriller that takes the reader down a dark hole, deep in the human psyche. I did find some of the the analysis of every detail of the past 24-hours a bit repetitive, and parts of the plot were predictable. But I would still recommend this one for the original and intense storytelling that you will make you squirm, yet still keep you reading and reading.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Books, and You-Jeong Jeong for the advance copy for review.