Syed

Would've given it 3.25, but only whole numbers are allowed, I guess.

Firstly, the synopsis of the book is kind of misleading. I initially went into it thinking it would mostly be about Rika solving the murders, but it ended up being more about character growth than the murders themselves. The book starts off quite slow, and it took me a while to shift my expectations away from it being a mystery about solving the killings. Even then, while I sometimes enjoyed the mouthful descriptions of scenes and food, it was occasionally too much (do try cold butter with hot bread, it is amazing!). I think the lengthy descriptions hurt the pacing of the book, especially when Rika first meets Kaji.

That said, I quite enjoyed the book around the time Rika and Reiko start traveling toward Kaji's hometown. Before that, it felt like the plot wasn't really going anywhere other than Rika intermittently doing some self-introspection. Perhaps another thing that hurt the readability of the book (from the limited perspective of an English reader) was that, while the translation was trying to be faithful to the original text, the sentences were sometimes odd and felt unnatural to read.

I really liked the dynamic between Rika and Reiko and how it shifts over the course of the book: how, in Rika's eyes, Reiko has the perfect life, and how that house of cards eventually crumbles. In the end, I also ended up liking the fact that it's up to the reader to interpret whether Kaji killed those men or not. However, leaving things up to interpretation was not always a strong point of the book. For my taste, it kept bringing things up as if the reader couldn't remember what was said a chapter ago. Or Rika would have a meaningful thought about how she wants to live her life, but I never felt the need to continue the thought myself because the author wouldn't leave the philosophical parts of the question open to interpretation.

I don't want to make it seem like the book was all bad. I think the way Rika develops as a person throughout the story is quite well thought out and well executed. Reiko's character arc is my favorite, and I'm happy to see that she begins letting life take her where it will rather than trying to bruteforce a “perfect” life forward. I wish we got to see more of Shinoi; I understand the point of Makato's character, but I'm not sure he needed so much screen time. Maybe we could have seen more of Shinoi and Rika's friendship instead.

I also really enjoyed the fact that some of the relationships Rika has with people exist in this strange, blurry space between romantic and platonic. A strong point of the book was that the motivations and actions of each character felt real. Each character's struggle to find “the right amount” for themselves was written quite well (when it was actually talked about). Whether it was Kaji trying to live her life through Rika, or Reiko's need to feel wanted and in control of her life again. The scenes with everyone at Shinoi's apartment looking after Reiko were super heartwarming and felt like the kind of community I'd want to have. Kaji also felt the right amount of slimy and manipulative to serve as a good antagonist for the story.

Overall I think if you can sit through about 100ish pages of nothing happening and another 100 for just descriptions of things I think the book is worth the read.