As an Amazon Associate, Natively earns from qualifying purchases through any Amazon links on the site.
All of our Movie & TV metadata comes from the wonderful project,
The Movie Database. Thank you! While we are permitted to use the TMDB API, we have not been endorsed or certified by TMDB.
Don't be misled by the beginning of this book, this isn't suspense or mystery. It's a long, detailed study into societal pressure to get married, how people go about finding a marriage partner, and why they succeed or fail in that goal.
While there is a lot of interesting cultural detail, and good insight into Japanese attitudes towards relationships and marriage, the book felt to me needlessly longwinded and didactic. It didn't help that, like in かがみの孤城, I felt zero connection to the characters, and didn't manage to care what would happen to them one way or another.
The language is generally easy and straightforward, and the 500 pages flow faster than expected, even though not all of them held my interest. I don't regret reading the book, but I'd only recommend it with reservations.