Specs
Reviews
(3.40/5)Too Annoying to Finish
What I thought was going to be an insightful discussion on LGBTQ and being accepted in society turned out to be a long-winded slog about how people with fetishes are minorities too and we should accept them in society. Which honestly just came off as an excuse for why it's okay to be inappropriate with children.
DNF at 300/500 pages.
CW: pedophilia and fetishes
We live in an era where diversity is celebrated, and minorities of all kinds are expected to be respected and included. Yet there are (sexual) minorities we can't even imagine, argues the author.
Multiple characters of different ages and backgrounds are connected, directly or indirectly, across a timeline starting several months before the end of 平成 to a few months after the start of 令和.
The general premise (feeling different, not fitting in) is one I like reading about and find easy to relate to. However, and even though the characters explained over and over how they felt, I found it hard to relate to them, as the difficulties they were supposed to be facing felt very exaggerated to me. The book works better if you take some things as a metaphor rather than at face value, I found.
The book is very well written, but definitely on the difficult side of the spectrum, with wide vocabulary and lots of theoretical musings on what it means to be human, to connect, to be accepted. For a book handling the sensitive subject of the variety of sexual desire, there is almost no NSFW or otherwise shocking content in there.
Content warnings: Discussion of pedophilia, fetishes
Basic plot: It's hard to summarize this without giving away too much, but broadly the book follows the lives of multiple people along a timeline leading up to 令和 (metaphorically a new age) and then shortly after. Themes of what it means to be normal or abnormal, and what it means to 'fit in' to society are explored via the character's differing inclinations and prejudices.
Language learning: If you want to practice tricky grammar, this is your book. The vocabulary doesn't hold back either, but I'd argue that the grammar is probably going to be more of a challenge. There were several sentences I had to pause and reread to grasp what was being said.
Review: Overall I liked this book, but I felt that many chapters went on longer than needed and some points were driven home a bit too thoroughly. The author also leaned heavily on scene setting by interlacing noises/distractions into the dialogue which was fun at first but felt a bit tired by the end. I also noticed that I looked forward quite a bit to some characters' chapters and dreaded one of them. I did not particularly enjoy reading anything by Yaeko.
Things I enjoyed:
I enjoyed the themes discussed in the book, it made me think a lot about what we deem acceptable in society, what we shun as too abnormal, and what we find unforgivable
Scenes I liked:西山 being "killed" by 正欲. 八重子 and 大也 not liking being sexualized while sexualizing others. The interview with the colleague 田吉, while feeling kind of on the nose, was really well written and made me feel a lot of feelings. Discussion on diversity being easy if you are in the majority. Discussion on the banning of content that can be fetishized and the implications of that. The part with the lady that keeps stealing, and the rehabilitation facility with parallels to conversion therapy. The discussion on why people talk about sex so much: as a way to make sure they are "normal".
Things I didn't enjoy:
In summary, a book that shouldn't be scrutinized in too much detail if you want to enjoy it; it's more about the implications and the abstract discussions that stem from the scenes described in the book, which it did manage to evoke for me.