junchisworld - Tumblr blog

[junchisworld]

— The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender /

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the the premise, the storyline, the characters (partially), the relationships between the characters and especially the writing. I wouldn’t say anything about this book is particularly life altering, but it was such a nice experience. Sometimes I felt there was more left to be explored for the characters, but this is a thought that came to me after finishing. I will most definitely be looking for more books by Aimee Bender, because there’s something uniquely nostalgic about her writing and the way she manages to conjure up images in my mind. Every scene paints a nice, colourful picture and the characters all have a distinguished look in my mind.

[junchisworld]

Before the coffee gets cold — Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Actual Rating: 1 - 1.5

This book disappoints me in such a horrible way that after reading the first three pages, I wished I could travel back into the past to get back the fifteen euros I spent. To think that no one stopped me… Though, I should have guessed what the experience of reading this book would entail, what with all of booktok obsessing over it.

I really struggled with this book and after reading the first fifteen pages, I put it down for two days — something I usually never do during a week where I have time to read. Since I was determined not to dnf, I spent those two days reading positive reviews without spoilers and finally I was able to bring myself to return to it. It wasn’t unenjoyable in its entirety, but it was still a chore. While the story about the Husband and Wife did evoke some emotion in me, it all felt carefully contrived. Everything was only written to cause you to feel something specific and it felt like the particular circumstances of the story arose only to get cheap reactions out of you. And most of the characters were unrealistic, as well as the situations they were stuck in. Hirai and her 'longing' for freedom felt disingenuous — come on, she walks into a café and because she’s not ‘fussed' over she equates it to freedom? Fusagi's alzheimer? Kumi who 'conveniently' — to maximise the guilt Hirai feels — dies in a car crash? A deadly pregnancy for Kei? Maybe I’m just incredibly picky but I almost felt as though all the spectacular and horrible things were used to make up for something.

While reading I thought to myself: it’s like in that horrible new Jurassic World movie where they have dinosaurs, but apparently that’s not enough, so they genetically engineer a new, invented species! As is said, dinosaurs are wow enough!

The time-travelling here should be wow enough, without extra spectacular circumstances. So, in a nutshell, this is where I think the author fails: making his interesting idea stand on its own.

The writing was the worst part in my opinion. Really not my style, but more than that, I would say that it’s just objectively bad writing, part of the reason why owing to the fact that the author is first and foremost, a playwright. This also happens to be his debut novel. There are so many superfluous sentences and words, and much to my chagrin, many usages of this kind of sentence: he did … as if …, he stayed silent as if mute, etc.

He does this while also leaving out more descriptions on things that I would deem important.

The premise, however, is really charming and also what led me to the book in the the first place. But the fascinating elements are not explored, the café is not as fleshed out as it should be and while the ‘rules’ are repeated like an incessant mantra, no such attention is given to any of the other mysteries surrounding the café.

My favourite scene of the book is in ‘The Sisters' where Kazu gets the woman in the white dress to drink seven cups of coffee so that she has to stand up to head to the toilet!

I also liked how the story with Kei’s daughter who comes to take a picture and the last story where Kei travels to the future are connected.

I’m sorry for the overly critical review, but I feel as though I wasted both my money and my time.

[junchisworld]

If We Were Villains, M.L. Rio

Actual Rating: 2.5 - 3.0 (Not sure, but I probably won’t reread it to find out for certain)

Spoilers Ahead!

For starters, M.L. Rio in this book does a remarkable job of convincing me she’s a man writing down this story through Oliver's eyes. When I found out she isn’t, in fact, a man, I went back and wondered about some of the descriptions of the girls, especially those with Meredith at their center.

But I digress, because this actually has little to no impact on my rating here, if any at all. She does a great job at diving into Oliver’s character. It’s not really the author's fault that I long for a story similar to this one, where the female characters aren’t merely side pieces, but rather humans not divided into one of these two categories: the ‘difficult', dark seductress and the good, thin, waif-like blond (think Camilla). Filippa ends up being my favourite character because of this. Although towards the end I developed an odd kind of affection for Meredith.

I actually want to rate this book a 3.5 when it comes to writing and plot alone. Or, maybe I want to rate the writing a 4 and the plot a 3. As in, the writing works perfectly and does exactly what it’s supposed to do without being particularly groundbreaking or special. And the plot gets a three because it’s interestingly crafted and has fascinating elements, but it does all this without being too original. The characters, on the other hand, where not explored deeply enough for my taste. And I felt as though the blueprint for their creation stemmed from Donna Tart's The Secret History. I had little connection to Oliver and while I felt more strongly for James and Wren, I would have liked there to be more of them. Not more of them in the sense that they should have appeared more often, but rather more of them in the sense of depth. But what perhaps bothered me the most was the relationship between Oliver and James, which they described with so many words, with so many strong feelings and sentiments, which just didn’t end up living up to it in my mind.

Even at the end when it’s revealed that their relationship is part of the genesis of all their problems, I felt kinda… meh. I didn’t pick up all that strong feeling until it was written down clearly during the last quarter of the book.

Oliver says at some point that he can’t find an adequate word to describe his relationship with James… To me, it just didn’t come across as having enough depth to warrant that and I found myself enjoying James' relationship with Meredith much more, while also hoping to see more of Alexander and Oliver! You can’t tell me that the latter two didn’t have the most potential. Towards the end, however, I was slightly moved by James and Oliver, I’ll admit, but all those feelings only came about in the ending. That’s another thing I don’t love about this book: there are very many good things, but it takes too long to get to them and once you do get to them, they are almost immediately over again.

And while the ending was goosebumps enducing, James being revealed as alive (he is alive, Checkhov's pistol, if it appears, it will have to be fired; nothing is written without reason) did so little for me. Which it shouldn’t have.

So, my rating of 2.5 actually comes from the enjoyment factor and the fact that I’m not the biggest fan of all the theatre aspects — which I knew before reading the first page, would be a substantial part of the book. Really, my rating as all of them do, depends on my preference. Other people will probably be inclined to enjoy this book more than I did.

Question: Did anyone while reading think it weird how Oliver kept being called the nice one? He didn’t seem particularly nice to me; not that he was mean, but not nice in a way that would warrant him to be branded in such a way. The word naïve which he later attributes to himself fits just a little in my opinion.

Meredith: "Welcome to art school. It's like Gwendolyn always says: When you enter the theatre, there are three things you must leave at the door: dignity, modesty, and personal space?»

Filippa: "I thought it was dignity, modesty, and personal pride."

Me: "She told me dignity, modesty, and self-doubt.?

All three of us were silent for a moment before Filippa said,

"Well, this explains a lot?"

[junchisworld]

A necessary evil at best and just plain evil at worst. But either way, evil.

- h.j