Reviews with content warning for Addiction - All the Lovers in the Night

Mieko Kawakami always sees right into my soul with her books, and All the Lovers in the Night is no different. The main character is so relatable and so realistic, she's not perfect but she is endearing in a way. I just loved this book so much and I've been thinking about it nonstop since finishing it.

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h4rmione's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

this book is for the lonely girlies <33 TW: this book has a brief yet graphic description of SA

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cassiewbee's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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suvissiin's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Sweet and melancholic slice of life and its small but huge moments. Deeply touching and human in feelings of loneliness, love, friendship, addiction and depression, packaged into the beautiful vision of a nighttime city.

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rinku's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

All the Lovers in the Night is a quite character driven, melancholic story. I liked it for what it was, but it couldn’t really catch me.

Fuyuko is a single woman in her thirties that is not happy with her life, so it happens one day that she starts to drink alcohol to deal with everything. For me, this decision came a bit too sudden. Then, she meets Mitsutsuka and everything starts to change. It takes some time, but it was so nice to see how Fuyuko starts to dress nicely and just starts to feel better. I’m not sure about the message of this novel though, and I don’t know what I think about the ending. Another thing I appreciate is that the has some feminist undertones but with Hijiri, I sadly have the feeling that her femininity was quite shamed.

Fuyuko is a likable main character, and her feelings are portrayed so well, especially her loneliness is intensively described. She just feels miserable and doesn’t want to be anymore. It’s so terrible when we learn that

she was raped as a teen

which explains some of her feelings. Mitsutsuka is the other important character and kinda the love interest of the story. I have to say that I didn’t like him, and that I couldn’t feel the chemistry between them. He’s just this kind of man that talks <i>to</i> women but not with them, if you know what I mean. This is probably because of the long dialogues. There’s also an age gap of around 25 years between them.

All in all, I would still recommend All the Lovers in the Night for people who are interested in Japanese contemporary literature and stories focussed on female characters like I am.

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stwriter92's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I read this book because I got sick of Murakami’s description of women in his books. I used to really like them, but now I can’t get back into them because the way he writes women is just so icky. I had heard that Mieko Kawakami was much better and I do agree!

All the Lovers in the Night centers on a mid-thirties woman named Fuyuko Irie who works as a freelance copy editor. She lives a lonely life and does not seem to mind this solitary existence. However, this changes when she finally takes a long look at her reflection and decides she need to change. She wants to feel alive again. However, as past traumas resurface, she turns to alcohol as a coping mechanism and forms a friendship with an older man.

The bittersweet story of Fuyuko Irie is the story of all of us. We are all aching to connect with the people around us and each of us feels, at times, like we are alone at sea. This book reminds us that, no matter how alone we are, we can always form connections and reach out. We are not alone.

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rachellen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I found this so interesting to read. For the better half of the story, I kept wondering ‘how is Fuyuko not addressing any of these crazy things or people with emotion?’ It was only 160 pages in when Fuyiko mentions her drinking behaviour in a negative light, as before then her drinking was described as if she was drinking water. It was so interesting and well done, with the first person perspective dulling my senses to what is bad and what is good, so much so I was randomly remembering details of the bad throughout the days it took me to read the book saying ‘oh. That was pretty bad actually’. It was quite sad that a lot of people seemed to use Fuyuko as therapy, yet something many introverts relate to.

I would have liked Fuyuko to have addressed her sexual assault from her teen years with more clarity for reader education/sake but this in itself is representative of our society’s rape myths that disregard assaults as assault unless it’s violent involving strangers.

Very interesting read. Totally agree with the ending. Poetic!

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