Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

21 reviews

marywahlmeierbracciano's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

There's no use sugar-coating it--this book is sad.  It follows Kazu, an aging man experiencing homelessness in a park near Ueno Station in Tokyo.  A working class everyman from a dialect-speaking region of Japan, he spends most of his life laboring in faraway cities, dutifully sending money home to his family.  Now that he's dead, he can't seem to leave the park where he spent his final years.  He reflects on the events that lead him here, including coincidental connections to the imperial family which fail to bring him good fortune.  This slim, chapterless volume reflects primarily on class disparity and grief.

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