A review by siria
All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe

3.0

This is quite readable, though I'm not entirely sure why. I found the characterisations quite distant (possibly because of the translation), the mystery not terribly mysterious (mostly focused on finding out how the crime was achieved, not why or by whom), and the ending quite abrupt. Yet some of the book's central themes—the dangers of materialism, of the credit system and how people get caught up in it—are sadly just as relevant now as they were when this book was written in the early 90s. My favourite aspect of the novel, and certainly the one which kept me reading, was Miyabe's description of Japanese society. The description of the family registers used as forms of personal identification were fascinating to me, as were the various social norms and pressures which conditioned and restricted character actions.