I love Japanese fiction and this is a book that I think that many readers will either love or hate.

It is a slow tale telling of Yuriko, her life and her family and the year she disappeared.

It is rather like a guessing game with this book as we are not really told what ails Yuriko..I think it is lost in the translation. But that aid it is a moving and emotional read and I really quite liked it

2.5-3 stars

Oh how I wanted to love this.

I generally love Japanese fiction. They're all so warm and cosy and heartwarming, but they do all seem to have a sense of tragedy or longing in them, which makes them more than just an entertaining story. They make you think and make you feel.

We assume that Yuriko has dementia, or certainly some severe memory problems.

It can be difficult to get the same meaning from the original language into the translated one. Now, having not read the original Japanese version, I can't say it's 100% accurate, but it feels right. It is hard to explain something like dementia if you haven't experienced it. To be honest, it's hard to explain it even if you have experienced it, but Genki and Cathy have managed that well. It's not overly gratuitous or morbid, it's sensitive but they haven't hidden from the annoyance and anger and short fuse that comes with it. You know they don't mean it. They don't know they've aske the same question five times, but we do, and we snap at them and then feel bad.

But the characters were a bit of a let down. Perfectly fine, but lacklustre and I didn't find myself gelling with any of them. They weren't bad, in fact I'd have preferred if they were bad, but they're just quite flat. Yuriko is probably my favourite and that's because I had a soft spot for her; she's struggling but she's not always sure why.

I really thought I'd have more of an emotional connection to it. I have experienced dementia in my family and it's horrible. And whilst I did feel involved at times, it was a bit harsh and so pushed me away a lot. I didn't think Izumi handled his mother's situation well, pushing her away and in turn pushing me away.

The pacing is a little off too. We spend too much time describing Izumi's office, and too little time focussing on what I thought were the important bits - family and memories.

It's not a bad book, but not a great book. It's interesting to spend a few hours with, but it wouldn't be one that will stick with me. It's too long, clunky passages, and flat characters, but I admit I did think the description of how dementia can affect you and the wider family was well handled in general.

Between the lacklustre characters, wonky pacing, and bleak undertones, I didn't have a good time with this one.

Story and Cadence:
🎆 The book felt too long for the story it was trying to tell. All those sections on Izumi’s workplace drove me nuts! They were boring and gratuitous and only seemed to exist to interrupt the flow of the core story!
🎆 The pacing was inconsistent: There were times during the main story that I was rocketing through without noticing my progress; there were other times (during the job scenes or Izumi’s inner monologue) that I struggled to pick the book up and continue with it.
🎆 The overall vibe is quite bleak.

Characters, Relationships, and Setting
🎆 Izumi felt like a child to me. I couldn’t understand his motivations or actions. Why would Izumi wait until his mother had advanced Alzheimer’s to start interrogating her about his father? Like, you’ve had decades to have this conversation and you’re getting pushy about it now? Also, the guy is almost 40 and only just realizes that his mother is a woman? Yikes.
🎆 While Yuriko’s illness and deterioration was upsetting, I couldn’t connect with her as a character either. She seemed almost Oedipal in her obsession with Izumi. Her motivations didn’t make sense either: like she just vanishes without a word leaving a 14/15 year old at home for a year so she can play house with a married man? WTF.
🎆 The relationship between Izumi and Yuriko made me deeply uncomfortable: it felt like they were in a toxic romantic relationship at times and despite being told over and over how close they were, I didn’t get a sense for this at all. They didn't listen to each other or communicate like adults, and felt like they were kinda gaslighting each other with their conflicting memories. It just felt unhealthy to me.
🎆 I hated how neither Izumi or Kaori seemed to want a baby but were just having one anyway. Yeesh, listening to their mental gymnastics was exhausting.
🎆 Despite place name-dropping, I didn’t get a strong sense of place in this book.

Language, Writing, and Presentation:
🎆 There were some beautiful phrases sprinkled throughout the story
🎆 I liked the little illustrations at the beginning of each chapter
🎆 The book had a lot of filler and was longer than it needed to be
🎆 Much of the dialogue was stilted and unnatural, distractingly so. In some cases, it made the characters feel super robotic and inhuman.
🎆 The writing style kept me at arm's length. Despite the sad subject matter, I wasn't able to emotionally connect with the characters or the story like I'd hoped. There was something detached about the writing/translation that kept me on the sidelines throughout the story.
🎆 The note at the end, by another author, telling me how to interpret the story was a bit strange. It felt defensive?

A Note on Translation:
I found the translation rocky. There was a distracting amount of Britishisms and language that made the characters feel more British than Japanese. This may be a personal preference, but I wish translators would take more care about considering what a Japanese person would say or at least use widely-recognized terms for things instead of niche British terms (like “pushchair”). British colloquialisms will draw non-British English speakers out of the narrative and, for me anyway, it makes me question the authenticity of the translation.

When I finished this book, I felt relief. I was glad to leave the world and characters behind, which isn’t great testimony.