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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
An excellent book where Banana Yoshimoto’s continues her style of an unusual story, strong theme of death and mourning, digging deeply into a few characters, making no moral judgment against people breaking universal taboos, demonstrating the power of friendship, and containing both surreal and spiritual elements. Recommend every book of her’s I have read!
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I started reading this with no expectations or back story. Funny how it went from a mysterious story to the main character getting involved into a sapphic relationship. Let’s just say the things that happend in this book made my jaw drop to the floor at a sudden point. This was SO UNHINGED. The ending was also too rushed imo
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Necesitaba este soplo de aire fresco. Es una extraña mezcla entre romanticismo, gótico y la manera de ser japonesa, su entusiasmo y su actitud al afrontar la muerte y lo inevitable. A la vez es un pequeño misterio bajo el que envuelve capas de amor turbio y soledad.
Se lee ligero, se siente pesado, Banana Yoshimoto de nuevo dejándote pesos en el cuerpo para que los digieras.
Se lee ligero, se siente pesado, Banana Yoshimoto de nuevo dejándote pesos en el cuerpo para que los digieras.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“I began to perceive your colors in many things around me, and I started to feel that there might be some way out.”
I love Yashimoto's airiness in her work. In N.P It feels hazey, the way air changes around heat, magical and hallucinatory but still intensely human and mundane, like sitting around a fire watching it warp the air. Yoshimoto's novels always feel like a delicate balancing act, with a perfect mix of uncanniness and reality, strange and the sublime, and best of her work is able to handle all of these without ever tipping too much into either.
I enjoyed this novel, and it is well-balanced, but it wasn't perfect to me - I don't really understand Yashimoto's way of exploring incest in her novels, but this one dealt much more interestingly with the experiences of taboo relationships as well as depression and suicide, and also my ebook was messed up so I think it was less immersive (but that's my fault). Also I loved the idea of the translation acting as a curse, leading people to commit suicide, and that plot thread was dropped pretty quickly, so I would have enjoyed more exploration of that.
I love Yashimoto's airiness in her work. In N.P It feels hazey, the way air changes around heat, magical and hallucinatory but still intensely human and mundane, like sitting around a fire watching it warp the air. Yoshimoto's novels always feel like a delicate balancing act, with a perfect mix of uncanniness and reality, strange and the sublime, and best of her work is able to handle all of these without ever tipping too much into either.
I enjoyed this novel, and it is well-balanced, but it wasn't perfect to me - I don't really understand Yashimoto's way of exploring incest in her novels, but this one dealt much more interestingly with the experiences of taboo relationships as well as depression and suicide, and also my ebook was messed up so I think it was less immersive (but that's my fault). Also I loved the idea of the translation acting as a curse, leading people to commit suicide, and that plot thread was dropped pretty quickly, so I would have enjoyed more exploration of that.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
