nettyice 's review for:

Mina's Matchbox: A Novel by Yōko Ogawa

2.5

reflective medium-paced

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A letdown after enjoying Memory Police and Professor and the Housekeeper. The characterizations, especially of Mina, were difficult to believe and very little happened. It could have been translation issue, but it's the same translator as her other novels, so it may just be this novel. I get that a year in childhood can shape later life, as seen by the final chapter, and that Mina viewed her own life as transient as a match, but that's about all I got from it. A struggle to get through this one and almost DNF'd.