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caity23444 's review for:
Sweet Bean Paste
by Durian Sukegawa
3.75 stars.
What a lovely, little read. You follow Sentaro, who is floundering in life after a stint in prison as he works in a confectionary shop to repay his debts. What begins as him taking on an elderly Tokue to teach him how to make sweet bean paste, turns into an invaluable friendship between the two. Despite Sentaro's initial resistance, their relationship is absolutely heartwarming.
My one gripe with the novel is I would have liked it to be longer, perhaps following Sentaro for longer after the end of the book. It would have been nice to see him making positive change in his life as a result of the end. Basically, I was really just hankering to see his reconciliation with his father, sadness it was not to be.
What a lovely, little read. You follow Sentaro, who is floundering in life after a stint in prison as he works in a confectionary shop to repay his debts. What begins as him taking on an elderly Tokue to teach him how to make sweet bean paste, turns into an invaluable friendship between the two. Despite Sentaro's initial resistance, their relationship is absolutely heartwarming.
Spoiler
I have to admit, I know very little about Hansen's disease and found it very interesting to learn about the methods used in Japan (no doubt similar was used elsewhere) to isolate it's sufferers from the rest of society. In fact I had no idea that leprosy was common in a time period after the middle ages, I thank this book for enlightening me.My one gripe with the novel is I would have liked it to be longer, perhaps following Sentaro for longer after the end of the book. It would have been nice to see him making positive change in his life as a result of the end. Basically, I was really just hankering to see his reconciliation with his father, sadness it was not to be.