Horrible characters and confusing story. I couldn’t finish this book. I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be satire

I have a complicated relationship with Yoko Tawada's writing. The Last Children of Tokyo captured the existential anxieties of ageing Japanese society, but the premise was more interesting than the execution. I found that novel a bit boring and lacking nuance, although it did have quiet dignity to it. Scattered All Over the Earth was problematic, uninventive and ultimately rather pointless, a rare square one start book for me. If I had known that Suggested in the Stars is a direct sequel to it, I would not have requested it. I was fully prepared to DNF it halfway through, as the most problematic aspects of its predecessor, especially the treatment of the novel's trans characters, are still there. However, something kept me going, and at the end of the day it surprised me by being not as abysmally bad as I had expected.

To get the worst out of the way - Akash, the trans character, is still routinely misgendered by all her (their?) friends who keep calling her 'a man in woman's clothing' and refer to her/them as he (the author also routinely mixes up transwomen and Khwaja Sara, using a potentially derogatory term to refer to the latter community). I detest it when cis authors use trans characters as their playthings. Tawada nominally addresses the issue in the Knut chapter, but at the end of the day she never says anything trans writers have not said a million times better. The treatment of this character gives Scarlett Johannsson saying she is an actress, she can play a tree if needed. Akash's own POV chapter adds nothing on their experience of their gender, although it does bring up the not so subtle ways in which they are racialised. However, the author still uses lots of stereotypes of Indians as easy-going, always a part of a wide social network etc to characterise Akash without going any deeper into their own character and personality, so the on the nose comments about their racialisation sort of lose their potency. What was the point in making this character trans?

My other problem with this novel is that all the characters (apart from Akash) come across as horrible people. Some, like Doctor Velmar, are intended to be, whereas others are meant to be the heroes of the story whose adventures we follow. They are an entitled bunch of mostly white people (Nora and Knut are the worst offenders) who say all the right things but do not do any of the right things. What is the point in being a Marxist or criticising colonialism if you still misgender your trans friend or mix up India and Pakistan? Okay, it is meant to be satire, but what is the satire punching at here? Lashing out at everything and everyone? Needless to say, most characters spew some horrendously offensive things, Dr Velmer being the worst. I was not sure why we needed to spend that much time in the mind of this awful racist person only for him to simply join the main gang without any sort of epiphany, redemption or, much better still, comeuppance.

Some things are handled better than they were in the first novel. We get fewer boring discussions of language and linguistics written with the nuance of social media posts. One of the things that helps with that the narrative is less focused on Hiruko, whose POV chapter is one of the last. It does mean that there is less focus in the novel overall - we get to see random personality studies of the POV characters, often barely relevant to the nominal main story. I enjoyed some of those chapters on their own right. Knut's mother's chapter is a standout in an otherwise disappointing reading experience.

The book tries to be an absurdist novel, but it is not nearly weird and random enough for that (see some of Helen Oyeyemi's writing if you enjoy good absurdism). The structure doesn't quite work as every character bar one gets only one POV chapter, so we never revisit the characters and their inner journeys. The lacklustre build-up means that the Susanoo chapter at the end, in which the titular character tries to manipulate everybody we met so far, doesn't stick the landing. Boring discussions reminiscent of the worst aspects of the first novel are backlogged, so the last couple of chapters are a slog to get through.

An improvement on the first novel, so 1.5 stars?

Thank you to Netgalley and Granta Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book, with the search for homeland and language being fascinating. However, for me the characters and storyline fell a little flat for me. Additionally, the inclusion of trans character only to refer to them as opposite to the gender they identify as did not sit right with me. This could be a part of the conversation of language in the book however it didn’t land in my opinion.

It did have a slow start but I did enjoy the writing style, it felt very introspective and dreamy.

can usually average a book a day but it’s taken me almost two days to get 40% of the way through so I’m calling ToD and DNFing. Perhaps it will land differently with readers who read the first in the series, but I didn’t enjoy this.

Why I stopped reading:

Problematic language:
👎 Why on earth is a transgender character that identifies as female referred to as “he” in the character list?
👎 Uncomfortable racism in the Velmer chapter when he’s grilling the friend group on their nationalities.
👎 The sexist and misogynist way that Velmer talks about Inga and Nanook notices Bellona
👎 I’ve worked with individuals with aphasia before and the portrayal in this book feels at best insensitive and at worst mocking
👎 As a Canadian reader, the word “Eskimo” is derogatory. There’s a reference in the character list saying this word choice is explained in the first book; but, I’ve not read the first book and was shocked to see this. Perhaps it would benefit from an explanation? Or a more conscious term for this human be used?

Writing style:
👎 Right off the bat, we’ve got a very slow chapter where we have more descriptions of food smeared on plates than story. I found I really struggled with the dialogue style between Munun and Vita. Similar to my observations about problematic language, I’m not entirely sure what the author was trying to achieve with these two characters but it feels almost mocking.
👎 The writing style itself feels like it’s going for dreamy but it’s landing more self-important, overwrought, and navel-gazey

Story and Characters:
👎 The characters don’t feel fleshed out, real, or interesting to me as a reader
👎 This book was advertised as a dystopia but 40% of the way in and it’s just the internal monologues as each individual travels to a clinic. It’s not holding my interest.

I didn’t realize when I requested this that I’d abandoned one of the author’s earlier works for similar reasons. This author is definitely not for me.

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you, Granta Publications.

Proceeding from where the first book left of in the series, Hiruko looks for someone who speaks her mother tongue.
The group of friends try to help each other and encounter strange phenomenon.

I am a bit torn about this one.
First of all, I am theorising that any obnoxious and offensive remarks, behaviours, mindsets, attitudes by/of any character is not written as an insult, but rather as part of the satire. I am hoping this is the case.

Secondly, I generally like Tawada’s writing style and some of the characters in this series.

Plot 3.5
Characterisation 3.5
Concept 4
Themes 3.5
Prose 3.5