Thank you to Simon & Schuster for sending me a copy of Luminous in exchange for an honest review.
About Luminous by Silvia Park
In a near-future, reunified Korea, 11-year-old Ruijie discovers a lifelike robot boy in a junkyard. He’s unlike anything she’s seen before, and they instantly bond over the limitations of their failing bodies. Ruijie’s discovery, however, unknowingly reignites a family’s buried past.
Siblings Jun, a detective, and Morgan, a roboticist, have been estranged since their brother Yoyo, a prototype humanoid robot their father created, disappeared. They’re reunited, however, by Ruijie’s find, forcing them to confront their shared past and face a future shaped by Yoyo’s return.
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In-Depth Look at Humanity
Luminous is an early contender for one of my favorite reads of 2025. As a fan of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, Silvia Park’s speculative, near-future debut is right up my alley. This book is an in-depth look at humanity and grief, as well as the uneasy relationship and reliance we have with technology.
Ruijie’s plot is a great example of this unease in particular. She has a progressive disease, causing her body to fail over time at a young age. In an effort to give her a normal childhood, her parents get her “robowear,” robotic limbs that help her move around. But even these are limited; they need to be charged frequently, and they can’t can’t keep up with the progression of Ruijie’s disease. She relies on technology to compensate, but even that isn’t enough.
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Critique on Capitalism and Consumerism
Another fascinating character is Jun, a trans man, a detective and a cyborg. After surviving an explosion caused by robots, 90 percent of his body is bionic. He didn’t transition before the accident and now has the male body he always dreamed of. His new body, however, still isn’t quite his own. Luminous takes a great look at what makes your body truly yours and whether you can mourn what you never really had.
Luminous is all at once a crime thriller, a dystopian novel and a tale of childhood friendship. It’s also a critique on capitalism and consumerism, but it’s never preachy. Everything works together to create a really tight debut novel.
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Luminous comes out on March 11 and is available to preorder from your local independent bookstore or Bookshop.org.
TW: addiction, blood, body dysmorphia, body horror, deadnaming, kidnapping, pedophilia, suicide, trafficking, transphobia, violence, war, xenophobia
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