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A review by thisotherbookaccount
Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura
2.0
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It’s been a hot minute, guys.
Over the past week, I’ve been chipping away at this chunky crime epic from Kaoru Takamura, a renowned Japanese writer who’s making her English debut here. Unfortunately, despite her reputation, this book is a monumental disappointment on multiple levels.
The premise is a tasty one: a group of blue-collar workers grow disillusioned about a society that values corporations over human lives. As such, they decide to take revenge by kidnapping the president of a beer company and extracting blood money from corrupt financiers.
The one good thing I can say about Takamura’s writing is that she’s able to create sympathetic characters on the page. Even the kidnappers are everyday folks you can root for, and you grow to understand each of their motivations. The writing also feels purposeful, moving forward with a slow but steady clip.
And those are about all the good things I can say about this disappointing book.
In short, it’s way too long with way too many characters. There are three main threads to follow — the police, the corporation and the press — and each is filled with characters and details that, ultimately, feel unnecessary. Takamura is obsessed with details like what this police division is doing, what that police division is doing, who is leading each division, what’s the ‘Politics’ desk is doing, what the ‘Crime’ desk is doing, what the HR department is doing, what the PR department is doing — you get the point. I know it’s a crisis situation, and everybody is involved — but do I really need to know EVERYTHING. If I shouldn’t need to read an entire user manual to operate a television, I shouldn’t need to read an entire police/corporate/press procedural to enjoy the story.
It’s too long, it’s too tedious, it’s too complicated, it’s too overhyped and — since I’ve read the spoiler for the second volume — it’s too melodramatic to be worth your time.
It’s been a hot minute, guys.
Over the past week, I’ve been chipping away at this chunky crime epic from Kaoru Takamura, a renowned Japanese writer who’s making her English debut here. Unfortunately, despite her reputation, this book is a monumental disappointment on multiple levels.
The premise is a tasty one: a group of blue-collar workers grow disillusioned about a society that values corporations over human lives. As such, they decide to take revenge by kidnapping the president of a beer company and extracting blood money from corrupt financiers.
The one good thing I can say about Takamura’s writing is that she’s able to create sympathetic characters on the page. Even the kidnappers are everyday folks you can root for, and you grow to understand each of their motivations. The writing also feels purposeful, moving forward with a slow but steady clip.
And those are about all the good things I can say about this disappointing book.
In short, it’s way too long with way too many characters. There are three main threads to follow — the police, the corporation and the press — and each is filled with characters and details that, ultimately, feel unnecessary. Takamura is obsessed with details like what this police division is doing, what that police division is doing, who is leading each division, what’s the ‘Politics’ desk is doing, what the ‘Crime’ desk is doing, what the HR department is doing, what the PR department is doing — you get the point. I know it’s a crisis situation, and everybody is involved — but do I really need to know EVERYTHING. If I shouldn’t need to read an entire user manual to operate a television, I shouldn’t need to read an entire police/corporate/press procedural to enjoy the story.
It’s too long, it’s too tedious, it’s too complicated, it’s too overhyped and — since I’ve read the spoiler for the second volume — it’s too melodramatic to be worth your time.