Share your thoughts in a quick Shelf Talk!
Flux by Jinwoo Chong
"After a shattering accident, a young man is drawn into a glossy tech firm that claims it can bend memory—and maybe time itself. As corporate secrets pile up and reality begins to glitch, identities blur across overlapping lives in a neon-lit maze of ambition and regret. Flux is a sleek, time-bending literary sci‑fi thriller that asks what we’re willing to rewrite to escape who we’ve been."
Have you read this book? Share what you liked (or didn’t), and we’ll use your answers to recommend your next favorite read!
Love Flux but not sure what to read next?
These picks are popular with readers who enjoyed this book. Complete a quick Shelf Talk to get recommendations made just for you! Warning: possible spoilers for Flux below.
In Flux, did you enjoy ...
... fractured, time-skipping storytelling that echoes one life refracted across eras?
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
If the way Flux splintered a single life into Blue/Bo/Brandon across timelines pulled you in, Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas will scratch the same itch. Its six interlocked narratives braid past and future so that patterns, obsessions, and wounds echo across centuries—much like how the elevator disaster, the shadowy tech offer, and the ‘80s TV idol all loop through the versions of Chong’s protagonist. You’ll get that same pleasure of piecing together how identities ripple through time.
... a reality-warping perspective where what you’re told may not be what’s true?
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Loved how the narrator in Flux keeps slipping the truth—especially around the corporate fallout, the too-good-to-be-true time-tech, and the idolized ‘80s star who may be more projection than person? In Annihilation, the biologist’s field journal is a masterclass in doubt. Area X reconfigures what she observes and who she is, just as Flux uses memory edits and time slippage to make you question every certainty.
... time anomalies that entwine personal grief with an investigation spanning eras?
Sea Of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
If the time-bending offer in Flux—promising to mend the trauma threading through the protagonist’s lives—hooked you, Sea of Tranquility delivers a similarly elegant puzzle. Mandel’s investigator tracks a temporal anomaly from a forest in 1912 to off-world colonies, mirroring the way Flux ties a childhood wound, a corporate catastrophe, and a mysterious program into one emotional throughline.
... a time-looped quest for self that blurs memory, family, and who you can become?
How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Drawn to how Flux turns a Korean American man’s splintered timelines into a search for self—haunted by a lost parent, a collapsing career, and a fantasy of an ‘80s hero? Charles Yu’s novel is a tender, funny, brainy riff on time machines and identity. As the narrator hunts for his father through circuits of memory, it echoes Flux’s ache to revise the past without losing who you are.
... surreal, mind-bending reality where memory predators and media ghosts feel real?
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
If the uncanny bleed-through in Flux—the way a nostalgic TV hero intrudes on the present and a secretive tech promise warps memory—thrilled you, The Raw Shark Texts dives full-on into the surreal. A man with erased memories is hunted by a conceptual shark born from information itself, channeling the same eerie vibe of media phantoms and identity slippage that made Flux so unsettling.
Unlock your personalized book recommendations! Just take a quick Shelf Talk for Flux by Jinwoo Chong. It’s only a few questions and takes less than a minute.