A review by evermoreau
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

when i started this book i didn’t expect to be so moved & genuinely impressed by it. i assumed it was just an action packed murder story, the bare bones inspired by which many other books of this type were written, but it ended up being so much more. it’s such a hopeful exploration of what people mean to each other and how far they are ready to go for one another — at first i rolled my eyes at the fact that nearly every single character was convinced they were madly in love with a classmate, despite not being together, but in hindsight it’s clear that this was less an insistence on the realness of their feelings and more an added layer of tragedy, because these kids should have been allowed to keep going to school and falling in love and experiencing youth. another thing i didn’t have high hopes for was the portrayal of female characters, but i was pleasantly surprised by how much focus they received. generally, most characters had at least one pov chapter dedicated to them, by the end of which i usually felt as attached to them as to the main cast. i found the characters altogether delightful, with personal favorites being shinji (you will not beat the gay allegations on my watch boy) and takako. the plot dragged a bit around 3/4s of the way through, but the ending made up for it; i especially liked the symbolism of the epilogue. originally i wanted to read this to decide if i think the hunger games is its rip off, but i lowkey still can’t tell… like in a way yes. in a way no. the basis of the system makes a lot more sense in thg i think but other than that i did see some resemblence i’m just not sure it can be called straight up copying. and i love both