This isn't really my kind of book but I had heard good things. It's not bad but not my thing. I will stick to books I generally like even though my opinion doesn't matter anyway.

An absolutely incredible story of what it truly means to be a family. And even more, what it means to be a person.

I loved these characters, each so unique. If you truly want a character-driven scifi, this is the perfect choice.

I've recently been watching a lot of anime with my son, and this story would adapt perfectly to that medium.

Ruijie's discovery of Yoyo at the story's beginning is possibly one of the best scenes I've read in quite some time. Beautiful.

"Bionic. Transhuman. Posthuman. The world made a promise to her: death is a problem that can be solved."

As someone who rarely reads Sci-Fi books, this book was the right one to get me into the genre. Park follows the stories several people and robots in a reunified Korea. She throws you into a world that is at the same time unbeliveable and incredibly realistic. Luminous is a read that will leave you questioning your own morals and philosphies by the very end.

Thank you Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for an eARC

2.5 stars

I really thought I was going to love this based off the premise, but the execution just didn't really work for me. I didn't feel connected to any of the characters which made it hard for me to then care about what was going on. The beginning of this was pretty interesting but then the pacing becomes very slow and drags on. The themes are interesting but ultimately have been explored before many times and I don't think this book does anything new. If this wasn't an ARC I most likely would've just DNFed.

DNF 48%

Luminous is a beautifully written book with an intriguing premise, but it is failing to hold my interest. The writing style can be quite lyrical at times, and I find myself getting lost. I think I am but the right reader for this book.

Books like this are absolutely everything I love about speculative fiction. I am so impressed with how well Park executed this very ambitious undertaking. On the surface this might seem like a mystery with some family dynamics and sci-fi elements but Park managed to pack so much more into this. There is a lot to consider in this one and I suspect each reader might find different aspects worth pondering on. The amount of worldbuilding here was balanced perfectly with the plot, the focus is on specific characters but there is just enough to figure out the broader world with Korean history making appearances.

I very much dug how Park explored various meanings of personhood, sentience and consciousness. Park’s look at societies’ willingness to discard anyone that doesn’t conform to ableist and ageist values through the lens of roboethics definitely stuck with me. Memory and why we are selective with it and what that means for reality also made an appearance here and it’s a topic I enjoy thinking about a lot. Give me all the variations of the Ship of Theseus basically.

This had comparable aspects to Ishiguro's novels, and you can see where they inspired Park. The writing was strong, especially the dynamics between the siblings. I wish there had been more sci-fi aspects. The prose at times was strong and other times was weak.

Luminous is at its heart an inquiry into what it means to be human and what it means to be “real.” The inquiry is sharpened and focused by being set in a world populated by robots who are almost human and by humans who can be “repaired” by becoming part robot themselves. It’s hard enough to tell them apart that in some circumstances robots are required to wear identifying marks, which resonates eerily with our human history that includes the forced wearing of yellow stars and pink triangles. So do the scenes of staged robot-fights that seem a combination of cock-fighting and Roman gladiator contests.

This is a dark world, filled with violence, in which there seems to be no room for joy. The main characters struggle with their own relationships—human to human, human to robot, and robot to robot—which provides a context for considering and appreciating the larger philosophical questions. Those questions are interesting, but the narrative framework wasn’t always successful in drawing the questions out. I had some trouble following the several storylines (or maybe the characters—especially the humans—were distasteful enough that I didn’t have the incentive to try). The narrative also seemed prolonged more than necessary. Even though there were many individually compelling scenes, and some very intriguing dialogue, I felt that I was often waiting too long to get to those moments. I can’t say that I fully enjoyed the read, or that I always understood the purpose or intended effect of the scenes, but the book led me to think about the political and technological present and future in new ways.

Thanks to Net Galley and to Simon & Schuster for providing me the opportunity to read this book before publication, in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this one—especially with the comparisons to Klara and the Sun and since Hum by Helen Phillips was easily my favorite book of 2024. The writing is undeniably pretty, and there were moments where I could see what it was trying to do… but I just didn’t feel anything.

I couldn’t connect to the characters at all (like… at all), and despite the lovely prose, I found myself zoning out while reading, and kept having to really try to focus. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time for me to read it? I honestly can’t even pinpoint what didn’t work—it just left me feeling meh.

This might be a “wrong book, wrong mood” situation, but either way, it wasn’t for me.

Luminous is the debut novel by Silvia Park about humans and robots cohabitating in the same world, set in a futuristic unified Korea. This story follows the story of two adult human siblings who had a rather unique robot sibling growing up. Years later as adults, their worlds collide again over a missing robot investigation as one sibling is a veteran of war and now the detective on the investigation, and the other is a developer of a new line of child robots. The story explores their behaviors and choices, and how their rather complicated childhood and individual relationships with the robot sibling their father created.

Silvia Park does an amazing job in her debut novel. I am truly floored by this novel. It is reminiscent of I, Robot, so if that is your thing, I would HIGHLY recommend this book. Luminous explores humanity and the exploration of having artificial intelligence mimicking us to the best of our ability to program. Its characters explore gender identity, sexuality, societal norms, and how humans are looking to humanize artificial intelligence and the ethics that goes behind it. Silvia Parks made me cry. She had me in the emotional and mental olympics, and kept me on my toes throughout this book. Luminous is truly a light upon our humanity and what makes us tick, and speaks about the possibilities of future technology. I CANNOT stress how much I loved this book and recommend it to all. Again, this story and its characters had me feeling, thinking and crying. I did not want it to end. There is not the book you want to read for a happy ending, but if you want to question your world and what it holds.

Thank you Negalley, Simon & Schuster and the author for the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

I will be posting to socials.

Wrong time for me. There was nothing wrong with this book at all, I just struggled to get into it. Will probably come back at a different time.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Luminous follows three siblings -- one of whom is a robot -- in a futuristic unified Korea as they reconnect in the wake of a murder investigation.

Luminous is one of those speculative reads that's probably staunchly for speculative fiction lovers, as it concerns itself far more with character and with investigating philosophical questions such as how we define humanity rather than building out a funky sci-fi world you'd like to see in a movie. Which is to say, as a person who loves a literary read with sci-fi flavor, Luminous absolutely hit the spot. In an age of technological ubiquity, it feels particularly poignant to revisit our relationship with technology through fictional robots and cyborgs. It was easy to get attached to Yoyo, Jun, Stephen, Morgan, etc., and difficult to grapple with the questions they posed -- what traits actually define humanity? How do we figure gender as a social construct, and our performance of gender norms, into that definition? Is creation a gift, or a curse? Park doesn't offer answers to these questions, but Luminous paints a vibrant portrait of potential answers to chew on.

I found myself occasionally wishing to feel the tiniest bit more grounded, less often thrown to the wind by a more scattered bit of prose, but overall Luminous is one of those litfic debuts that I am certain will stick in my brain for quite some time, and I'm excited to see what Park will do next.

Had higher hopes for this, but never got around to finishing it.

Thanks, anyway, to the publisher for the e-galley!

An amazing debut! I was so drawn to the synopsis and this book delivered. The main characters are all interesting and I was enthralled by the world building. You can really get attached to the siblings and I found myself flipping through the pages. There's also a mystery element to the story that was engaging and satisfying in the end.

LUMINOUS is a book that's a step outside of my reading comfort zone, given that it's literary scifi. I knew even before I picked it up that I was going to be taking a chance on something that isn't necessarily 100% my thing... and that turned out to be precisely the case. While I caught glimpses of elements that might work for other readers, and while there are undeniably some interesting themes woven throughout the narrative, LUMINOUS just wasn't a book for me.

LUMINOUS was overall an okay read. I don't think I ever really fully grasped the setting and other worldbuilding elements, nor did I connect with any of the characters. (I do think that the latter might potentially be a stylistic choice, given that we're reading a narrative that grapples with a tech-heavy, tech-occupied world, "human" robots included.) The writing felt a little clunky at times, and I kept getting thrown off with the time skips (between scenes in a chapter and between the actual chapters) too.

The main reason that I persisted in reading the book? The themes. It explores loss, and the accompanying grief and anger that may accompany this kind of trauma. It considers identity, what shapes someone over the course of their lives and what makes one human. It looks into connection, both in terms of personal relationships and societal ones. It examines humanity & technology, the relationship we have with tech and the concept of technology being made human. These are the things that stood out to me in particular, and I found myself considering my own feelings and opinions more frequently than I expected as I read.

LUMINOUS packed a lot into its pages, and unfortunately, the majority of its elements didn't end up being my thing. But I did notice enough interesting themes to keep me reading (and certainly having this one be a buddy read helped too!), and that's ultimately why I ended up finishing the book.

this book had so much going on! so many perspectives, so many themes, so many dynamics, so many genres. that was its biggest strength, but also, as i grew to prefer certain POVs over others, occasionally cumbersome. overall, this book was so unique and well done!

Futuristic novel set in a unified Korea. Explores family relationships and human/robot relationships. There's a lot of overlap: some of the humans are part bionic, some of the robots are family members. Can a robot really feel love when he/she has been programmed to feel and act certain ways? Interesting stuff! The prose got a little confusing at times but I really liked how well-developed the characters were, both human and robot.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

Jun is a detective in Robot Crimes. His sister Morgan designs robots and her team is working on the latest and greatest model. Jun is investigating a crime when his path crosses Morgan's and the novel unfolds.

The setting is a reunified Korea, some time in the future. Robots are ubiquitous, lifelike, operating as servants, child surrogates, even lovers. The ethical questions inevitably kick in. What is life? What is consciousness? Who gets to decide?

Park's narrative is compelling and at times uncomfortable, in a Severance kind of way. With a sprinkling of ironic humor:

"Never had a robot been mourned so publicly, not since Audrey Hepburn caught on fire during the less-racist remake of Breakfast at Tiffany’s."

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub date 3/11/2025)

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this book, especially since it delves into ethical questions surrounding robots and AI, topics that become more relevant every day. The story neither sensationalizes nor simplifies the complex issues of sentience and autonomy, which I appreciated, and I’m already planning to read it again to catch more details. There were many aspects I enjoyed, from the thoughtful commentary on disability and care in passages about a character's battery-powered braces, to the critique of hypercapitalist society’s treatment of non-human creatures, to the narrator's humor, such as the main character's cat being named Smaug and a clever cultural reference about the thirteenth floor.

Unfortunately I’m going to put this one aside for now. I’m 30% in and having a hard time with the narrative. There are times where it flows and I’m enjoying the story but mostly I have no idea what’s happening and it’s taking away from my enjoyment.

The premise is good and maybe some day I’ll pick it back up but I have too many other books I’d rather be reading.

I did do a feature post on my bookstagram account.