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If not for one chapter, the book could have been a masterpiece
The winner of the Japanese Book Seller Awards 2020 and has been made into a movie recently, does it lives up to the hype?
The book is very well written. I really love Its depiction of the complexity of human emotion, it successfully evokes that eerie and uncomfortable feeling you often get when reading a 純文学. Sadly it was ruined by one chapter, which is chapter 4. We get to know one character's back story (don't worry this is not a spoiler, it's pretty obvious judging from the chapter name) and honestly I couldn't care less. It's just shoved in there with no particular reason other than the writer needs us to sympathize for that character and it ended up failing, it feels forced and contrived. The writer also tends to remind us about the protagonist's struggle over and over again, even near the end of the book, and this can get tiring and annoying after a while.
Difficulty-wise, this book is quite easy. It uses mostly everyday vocabulary and very little N1/N2 grammar. The prose is pretty straightforward with metaphorical passages here and there that aren't hard to decipher.
Content warning: domestic violence