Kakitzu

It took me longer than I would've liked to finish the novel, which probably affected my experience. With that said, this was a solid read. Since this is adapted from the movie, I hope to see that soon and compare the two.

I think this book suffers from its short length. It contains all the right pieces but I think there just wasn't enough time to fully explore and truly use them to their fullest potential. It just feels like there so many things that were left untapped that could've contributed to the message of death and living. Despite that, characters are relatable and it's not too hard to sympathize with, if not empathize with.

The narrative essentially the journey of meeting the Summer Ghost, Ayane, and then finding her body. And that's all. It's a compelling premise, but all that happens is floating around, searching until the body is found. There isn't much conflict baked into that goal other than the time constraint of doing it before summer ends. Because that never felt tense or challenging, and rather boring, the payoff from it didn't hit for me.

Overall, this is a novel with very strong themes, ideas, and likeable characters. However, its short length prevented those aspects from having more depth.

Because the synopsis gives away the premise of the book, the beginning portion is bit too slow in my opinion. The story only picked up for me around 35% of the way in. At its core, the story is about all kinds of love - parental, platonic, sisterly, romantic - and how people decide show and embrace the challenges that comes with loving someone. The way the story depicts them feels very realistic, especially the relationship between the two leads. The climax, along with the additional detail of Ms. Iwato's illness, was well written and had me on my toes until the very end. The narrative only continued to peak as I read it, only dipping drastically with the final chapter. I found it to be an unsatisfying way to wrap things up.

I found myself smiling multiple times while reading this. The relationship between the two leads is sweet. I liked the pacing of the story; it was clear what the focus was supposed to be. That said, it wouldn't have hurt to have gotten more characterization for the side characters. The premise is intriguing but I was quite disappointed with how it ended up being used. I expected the President being Eina, but the more the story progressed, the more I wanted that to not be the case.