I Leave It Up to You

Award-winning Chong’s second novel (after Flux) is about Jack, who awakens after 23 months in a coma. He doesn’t know what happened or why he’s in the hospital. His nurse fills him in, but that leaves him even more alarmed and questioning whether he still has a job, his Manhattan apartment, or his fiancé Ren. When his Korean American parents hear that he’s awake, they rush from their home in Fort Lee, NJ, to be at his side. But Ren does not. Jack is allowed to go home, as long as he has great care and much therapy. However, he learns that his parents had to sell his apartment to help pay for his hospital bill, and he no longer has a job. His parents are ready to help him recover, so he returns to their home. They have a sushi restaurant that’s challenging for them to keep open, so Jack works in it, just as he did in his youth. His nurse comes to check on his progress, and Jack finds a new life, though not the one he’d planned on at all.