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heysteeve 's review for:
The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
by Gail Tsukiyama
Overall, I liked this book, especially as an audiobook; the prose is beautiful and the narrator really brought it to life. I think reading it in book format would have actually made it less enjoyable. This story doesn’t follow “western sensibilities” of structure so it seems to ramble and lose its way sometimes, and I can’t decide whether I like that or not, but I suppose it’s a nice change of pace. Tragedy upon tragedy strikes these characters and is not balanced by much happiness, making it an overall melancholy read. The absolute randomness of some of it made me question what it brought to the story other than just making readers sad.
I loved the depictions of Japanese traditions such as sumo and Noh plays, which I didn’t know anything about, and it was interesting to see a WWII depiction from civilians in Tokyo. I also loved seeing these characters’ lives develop and change, and it was honestly nice that there really wasn’t any villainous character in the post-war section of the book, although that did add to the meandering nature of the plot in the second half.
I loved the depictions of Japanese traditions such as sumo and Noh plays, which I didn’t know anything about, and it was interesting to see a WWII depiction from civilians in Tokyo. I also loved seeing these characters’ lives develop and change, and it was honestly nice that there really wasn’t any villainous character in the post-war section of the book, although that did add to the meandering nature of the plot in the second half.