A review by clovetra
Black Box by Shiori Itō

challenging dark informative fast-paced

3.0

i don’t want to be a dick because this memoir was very clearly needed & its premise is good. tbh even calling it a “premise” seems scummy of me because a real human being had to be raped in order for this novel to exist. so i do think ito’s story needed to be told to audiences outside of japan who may be unfamiliar with her story. god knows i was.
there are points of this novel where the text became repetitive. i don’t mean in any way shape or form “repetitive” in terms of her writing about her feelings surrounding her experience. but certain things were repeated a lot, for example, her questioning the arrest warrant was extremely drawn out. i imagine it was very true to life in that as the thought kept repeating in her head, she repeated it as often in the book. but as a reader it almost became… dare i say boring? kind of? after a while it almost lost its meaning to me because it was repeated over and over again.
i do think the statistics were important and needed in this book. it put into perspective for me, a non-japanese person, the true state of the japanese criminal justice system. like my god that story about the fucking golf student. absolutely horrifying.
what else was horrifying was the entire way her case was handled by the higher ups in the police…….. holy fuck. i actually had to pause and put the book down because i was so mortified that this is actually a true story, and not only did someone have to go through this mishandling of her crime, but the fact that the people “supposed” to protect us were corrupt in ways i thought weren’t possible. jesus christ.
i don’t want to invalidate this book. honestly i think everyone in the entire world should read it. but i am someone who is an enjoyment-rater first and foremost, and i can’t lie and say this book was enjoyable. because it wasn’t. it was fucking nauseating. but i think i will recommend thid book to everyone in the world ever. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings