milos955jof265

WOW! Not sure where to start with this really apart from to just totally and completely emphasise how bloody brilliant this book was. This just confirmed for me even more my total adoration for Japanese Literature. Why I like the genre so much isn't so easy to explain. Most, aside from Ishiguro because he writes in a much more British style, write fairly simply, not using excessively brilliant or flowery language and therefore would not, I do not think, win prizes for the actual writing because it is exactly what I said...simple and very matter of fact. But it doesn't matter, I'd pick simple over flowery anyday because simple here becomes completely enthralling, the Japanese seem to have this amazing talent of being able to pull me into whatever story they write so absolutely and completely....... To date, I've read Ishiguro, Murakami (both ones Ryu and Haruki) Kirino and now this guy...and to my recollection unless my memory serves me wrong, despite being for the most part (with the exception of Haruki) being very simple books with very simple plots, all got 5 stars and totally blew me away... I get completely and absolutely lost in Japanese fiction in a way I find that I don't within other books... Now back to the book in question! Simple plot typical of a crime fiction novel, girl gets murdered by stranger. Who is the stranger? Nothing particularly unusual or exciting right? Well you'd be right in assuming that but no, not correct... Yoshida tells the story of the crime and its aftermath whilst in typical Japanese fashion bringing to the brim about 1001 different characters and bringing you into each of their stories too so your almost caught up within 10 different mini stories! Now at first when I noticed the humongous amount of characters he had started to introduce, a bit of intrepidation and doubt came to the fore, I felt that he may have been trying to be too ambitious, a story would have to be exceptional for you to take interest in and follow all 1001 different stories going on at the same time right? I was wrong.... Not once did I not know who a particular character was. Not once did I have trouble following despite the large number of plots and day to day activities going on at the same amount of time. I was in love with each and every one of the characters (for such a relatively short book and for such an amount of characters brought into it, so well developed it was unreal) and their respective parts in the book... The latter part of the book to do with one girls love for a wanted man really got to me. The way that the whole love conquers all was explored in this part really affected me, I felt so much for it because I could relate to it in terms of with my actual relationship myself and I felt myself egging them both on and almost praying that both would run off in the future together and be happy....so therefore I found the ending exceptionally sad...but despite that and despite this entire review I cannot fully capture how amazing this book. With such simple words, such simple plots, Yoshida creates an amazing piece of work. Check it out!

2022-10-29 03:48