A review by rainbow_narwhal
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

The book was great. I read the translation by Nathan Collins and some things must have been lost in translation. The writing seemed clunky at times. Some of the chapters introducing new characters only for them to meet their demise on the next page became formulaic and super repetitive. I did skip/skim over these chapters. 
The main characters were interesting to some extent. Noriko was unfortunately written not well. She was a damsel in distress for the most part. Quiet, shy, and submissive with a lack of identity and hardly any background story when so much was dedicated to fleshing out other characters. I was so disappointed that at
the end of the book when she escapes and we are told second hand about how she strongly held and pulled Shuya up onto the ship through the strong waters and she kills a bunch of soldiers.
her moments of bad-assery are told to us second hand. 
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