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supremeleaderev 's review for:
Tokyo Ueno Station
by Yu Miri
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a very sad and beautiful book that reflected on homelessness in Tokyo seen through the eyes of our main character, Kazu, who had a very troubled upbringing where he kept being hit by tragedy after tragedy: natural disasters, family emergencies, and being forced to be apart from his children just to make ends meet. I had no expectations going into the book: I was drawn in by the vibrant cover, and I couldn't have cared less what the story was about. On one hand, this is a bit of an issue because there's so many books on my tbr that I can't afford to start adding every single book with a nice cover to it, but it does allow me to branch out and read books that I would have never read otherwis, and that was the case with this book. Although the blurb is enticing, nothing besides the fact that the narrator is dead would have stuck out in the long run, but I am glad I did read this
I loved the way Yu talked about homelessness in the book, and she did a really great job not only humanizing this group of people whom often get overlooked by society. She showed the homeless population as this tightknit community that had eachothers back and worked really hard to help eachother. And that bond stretched beyond the people in the park at Ueno Station, but to the buisnesses around them who also really helped the homeless. I was touched by the part of the story that talked about when the Emperor visited, and how all of the homeless people had to pack up everything they own and moved just to make things look "nice" for their emperor. It was an interesting commentary about how the government (and this can be applied to tons of places, not just Japan) cared more about appearances and would rather temporariy evict the homeless than find a long-term solution that would have helped them.
I also enjoyed how this book made sure to walk the readers through a lot of historic events in Japan. I am not Japanese, so I had very little to no knowledge about most of what Yu was talking about. Although some times it felt like a bunch of infodumping rather than telling a story, but most of the time I enjoyed it. I felt like it was an interesting look at the past, because you hear about Kazu character seeing these technilogical advancements for the first time, and it really puts in perspective how much has changed in a short time. This book takes place in modern times, and Kazu had passed away not that long before the start of the book. Even though the 1930's feels super long ago, you realize that there are people who were alive then who were still alive now, and it feels so weird because it shows you that the past isn't really that old
And although the story was beautiful, I also found it very boring and lacking at times. This is a complaint that I've seen in man other reviews for this book, and I felt that this issue was a big detriment to the book. There was so much promise to the story and I feel like the message is so important to hear, but it got drowned out because of all the extra description and inner monologues that didn't add anything to the story. This book is already short enough as it is, but I think fifty pages of the extra descriptios could be cut out and the story would have been the same. Some of the inner monologues can only be described as as useless, and my brain could not focus on them for the life of me. There were multiple moments where I realized I was reading the same sentence over and over again. And even though the pages were small and didn't have that much text on them, I felt like I was reading one page an hour at times.
All in all this was a good book, despite it being really slow and boring at times. I appreciate the messages that Yu was trying to convey, and I think this is the kind of book that people who like literary fiction more would be inpacted by. If this book was just a little bit longer I probably would have rated it lower, because despite its good parts, by the time the book ended there were almost more boring parts than intersting parts. At the time I finished, I had to incentive to ever reread this, but I actually got a brand new copy of this for free, so now I feel like my opinion has changed. I can see this being the type of book that only becomes more profound and impactful after a second read. But who knows!
I loved the way Yu talked about homelessness in the book, and she did a really great job not only humanizing this group of people whom often get overlooked by society. She showed the homeless population as this tightknit community that had eachothers back and worked really hard to help eachother. And that bond stretched beyond the people in the park at Ueno Station, but to the buisnesses around them who also really helped the homeless. I was touched by the part of the story that talked about when the Emperor visited, and how all of the homeless people had to pack up everything they own and moved just to make things look "nice" for their emperor. It was an interesting commentary about how the government (and this can be applied to tons of places, not just Japan) cared more about appearances and would rather temporariy evict the homeless than find a long-term solution that would have helped them.
I also enjoyed how this book made sure to walk the readers through a lot of historic events in Japan. I am not Japanese, so I had very little to no knowledge about most of what Yu was talking about. Although some times it felt like a bunch of infodumping rather than telling a story, but most of the time I enjoyed it. I felt like it was an interesting look at the past, because you hear about Kazu character seeing these technilogical advancements for the first time, and it really puts in perspective how much has changed in a short time. This book takes place in modern times, and Kazu had passed away not that long before the start of the book. Even though the 1930's feels super long ago, you realize that there are people who were alive then who were still alive now, and it feels so weird because it shows you that the past isn't really that old
And although the story was beautiful, I also found it very boring and lacking at times. This is a complaint that I've seen in man other reviews for this book, and I felt that this issue was a big detriment to the book. There was so much promise to the story and I feel like the message is so important to hear, but it got drowned out because of all the extra description and inner monologues that didn't add anything to the story. This book is already short enough as it is, but I think fifty pages of the extra descriptios could be cut out and the story would have been the same. Some of the inner monologues can only be described as as useless, and my brain could not focus on them for the life of me. There were multiple moments where I realized I was reading the same sentence over and over again. And even though the pages were small and didn't have that much text on them, I felt like I was reading one page an hour at times.
All in all this was a good book, despite it being really slow and boring at times. I appreciate the messages that Yu was trying to convey, and I think this is the kind of book that people who like literary fiction more would be inpacted by. If this book was just a little bit longer I probably would have rated it lower, because despite its good parts, by the time the book ended there were almost more boring parts than intersting parts. At the time I finished, I had to incentive to ever reread this, but I actually got a brand new copy of this for free, so now I feel like my opinion has changed. I can see this being the type of book that only becomes more profound and impactful after a second read. But who knows!