A review by miffybooks
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

3.0

i was rlly into ozeki’s transcendent style n i liked how confrontational it was, especially in the opening! i thought the characters were built well n i had a lot of geniune investment in annabelle and benny’s relationship. i just think the monologues from the book’s POV go from a cool experimental technique to overly preachy rlly quick and a lot of that stems from the fact that i didnt really feel that moved by the spiritual elements of the book! none of it felt very new, from the philosophies of zen to the discussion of interconnectedness and i guess i was just expecting smth a little fresher? i dont rlly mind what ozeki’s doing here and i think a spirtual novel thats full of familar affirmations has a lot of value! i just didnt feel grabbed by it; especially at the end there are a lot of points where i clearly am meant to be moved and i just didnt feel much.

this feels like a banana yoshimoto book but twice the length. it gave me a lot of similar tranquil but turbulent feelings and i was pleasantly surprised by how consistently i wanted to pick this back up, but it was ultimately too long and a little too on the nose to rlly move me.