Shelter (Yun) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Gripping.... Yun shows how, although shelter doesn’t guarantee safety and blood doesn’t guarantee love, there’s something inextricable about the relationship between a child and a parent…. Shelter is captivating.
New York Times Book Review

The combination of grisly James Patterson thriller and melancholic suburban drama shouldn’t work at all. Yet Ms. Yun pulls it off...The proximity of Kyung's parents and the atmosphere of grief and panic launch him on a spiral of self-destruction that’s impossible to turn away from.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal


[A] beautifully crafted, deeply moving first novel.
Chicago Tribune


I read the greater part of Jung Yun's Shelter in a 14-hour sitting, interrupted by only five hours of sleep. I was on a trip, with other people, but I couldn't do anything until I was finished; Yun's debut may be a family drama, but it has all the tension of a thriller. It's a sharp knife of a novel―powerful and damaging, and so structurally elegant that it slides right in...it gets better and richer with every page...Like the writer's version of a no-hitter, Shelter is a marvel of skill and execution, tautly constructed and played without mercy.
Steph Cha - Los Angeles Times


In other hands, this material could fall apart or lose steam, but Jung Yun keeps it together through pitch-perfect, but flawed narrator Kyung and a high-tension storyline.... An unexpected page-turner.
Toronto Globe and Mail


Yun's emotional perspicacity and tensile prose combine to turn it into something deeper than mere family melodrama.... Shelter emerges as rich and multi-layered.
Toronto Star


Jung Yun dazzles in her haunting debut.
US Weekly


[A] fearless and thrilling debut.
Town & Country


The tension inside Kyung [is] visceral....Yun skillfully makes his unraveling feel fast-paced and urgent.
Entertainment Weekly


Yun keeps the suspense and family drama racing neck and neck.... Shelter is a suspenseful, illuminating first novel.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC.com


What follows is the unfolding of a horrific and complicated crime―not to mention a horrific and complicated hidden family history.
Marie Claire


In her intense debut, Jung explores the powerful legacy of familial violence and the difficulty of finding the strength and grace to forgive.... Despite some lengthy asides, especially in the novel’s first half, that threaten to drown the narrative momentum in emotional reflection, a lot happens in this family drama rife with tension and unexpected ironies.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [L]ike Celeste Ng's superlauded best seller, Everything You Never Told Me, also about a dysfunctional mixed-race family's tragedy, this work should find itself on best-of lists, among major award nominations, and in eager readers' hands everywhere.  —Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC
Library Journal


Yun too frequently explains what would have been more effectively described, leaving the book a little flat. Yun's characters don't merely desire walls and a roof, although houses have a powerful and intelligent presence here. A diverse and nuanced cast of characters seeks shelter from pain and loneliness in this valiant portrayal of contemporary American life.
Kirkus Reviews