Specs
Reviews
(4/5)Giving a grading to this book is challenging since I loved 2 out of 4 stories (the 1st and 3rd), found the 2nd one very disturbing, and the 4th one as well to some extent. In particular, the 4th story involves the author herself, as a particularly despicable character, which… is strange to write about yourself. I am left wondering if that story is based on true events, which would be pretty bad to say the least.
At the end of the day, though, I loved the author’s writing style, which led me to grade it 5* anyway.
I am surprised by the others complaining about lack of punch, since I found all stories except the second one had an impactful ending. On the other hand, the second story was bad vibes all around and would probably justify a trigger warning: stalking. Contrary to the other 3, I also found the end unsatisfying too (but it’s compensated by the writing style, so it’s not so bad).
It was my first book by this author, but I will definitely read more.
Content warnings: None I can think of
omk3's review gives a great summary, and overall I echo their feelings on the book both in terms of difficulty (huge stretch of vocabulary, lots of casual speech and internet slang mixed in with the formal language of business emails) as well as impact.
The stories are fun little nuggets, but none really had a good punch to them. I liked enough of where things were going that I'd like to read some of the author's other works, especially long form as maybe short stories just isn't her best medium.
4 short stories, all taking place in the time just after the height of the pandemic, but with the pandemic as the background rather than the main subject. Each of the main characters have their own quirks, extreme or more common, and find themselves in unusual situations through (at least partly) their own doing. While there's much to criticise about all four of them, they get their point of view across in such a way that it's almost easy to sympathize with them despite their (sometimes unexplainable) behaviour.
The language is modern and casual, and it did give me the occasional difficulty because of that. There's puns, slang, more katakana than average, social media vocabulary, etc. All stories are more or less in the stream of consciousness style, with the last one being basically a series of emails, with some thoughts in between. There's definitely some subtle humour throughout the book. Definitely more humour than drama.
I did like the setup in all stories, and the characters did come alive, but I expected more of a punch than I got. I didn't feel much urgency to keep on reading, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Just that I expected to enjoy it more.
A note on the audiobook: There's only one narrator for all characters, and for some of these characters her voice just didn't feel right to me (for example it was just too sweet and chirpy for one particular male character). Eventually I realized I understood the book better without reading along with the audio, as I found the voice distracting and even a little confusing.
