toki

haunting parables about trauma, abuse, and power. i found her pieces about sexual trauma & exploitation (the embodiment & snare) to be the strongest of the entire collection. really enjoyable.

maybe i missed something with this one? i disliked a number of things:

- all the voices blurred together, which might have worked with the theme of unity/disunity, but all the statements were so bland and insipid that i didn't really care to distinguish them. there was a funeral director, certainly, but they were so same-in-tone and same-in-attitude as everyone else that nothing really interested me about their perception of life/death as a funeral director.

- because the voices all blurred together, good chunks of the narration were dedicated to being too obvious to the extent of being unrealistic, e.g characters outright introducing themselves as human or humanoid. the existential philosophy here didn't work for me; it felt like platitudes from ham-fisted raisonneurs rather than a diverse range of beliefs on what it means to be human

- i felt as if the themes were underdeveloped, particularly regarding capitalism. humanoids are essentially created to work, being used as a form of cheap labor, and yet, this book dances around the idea. sure, there are some snide comments here and there, but no real exploration on life as inseparable from capitalism.

overall, i feel like there are better books that do the same thing the employees tries to do, both in style/form & substance.

lots and lots to think about here! nauseatingly beautiful; i really fell in love with tate's prose as the novel continued. i really enjoyed the jumps in perspective, and the continuity of "we" and the girls as one unit interrupted by chapters of them alone & separated in their adult life. i enjoyed the subtle exploration of their trauma, and how violence against women, particularly girls, was maintained in this particular town. what really appealed to me was the creeping dread of unease, and the general thought of "surely this isn't the case..." and then confirmation that that is, indeed, the case. brutes felt like a puzzle with only the corner pieces aligned, with details slowly clicking into place as you read and recall. it felt very much like remembering your childhood and remembering all the sickening, rotting details that you normalized or forgot as a kid.

i really wanted to like this book, esp because it was such a labor of love, but it just wasn't to my tastes :( i wish kyoko was given more time, esp wrt her relationship to her mom. really disliked how kornell was depicted; i think his character could have been more fleshed out. as it stands, he feels like a caricature existing only to emphasize kyoko's "smallness" or to further her arc .... their relationship was very sweet so i'm sad he didn't get more than what he did.

did not like daniel, did not like how much sympathy & time he was afforded.

i was very much struck by the writing, so maybe min's first book is better suited for me?

really powerful, haunting ruminations on the effects of child abuse throughout your life. i think labelling this book as "weird girl lit" or anything similarily reductive is doing a huge disservice to the way murata portrays disassociation, trauma, and a society that inherently neglects children & fosters their abusers. heart-wrenching, stomach-turning, nail-biting, but ultimately a very tragic and sorrow tale about abuse.