Ratings4
Average rating3.5
Now a Major Motion Picture starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell. A man is drawn back to his childhood home and discovers his parents living just as they were on the day they died thirty years before... Screenwriter Harada is disconnected from the world. Lonely and jaded, he's drifted apart from his son and is dismissive when approached with gestures of friendship, including from a lonely and mysterious tenant who lives in his mostly empty apartment building. One night, when Harada returns to the dilapidated downtown district of Tokyo where he grew up, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. And so begins Harada's ordeal, thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they died many years earlier. Deeply felt, searching, and profound, All of Us Strangers is a beautiful meditation on loss and the connection between familial love and romantic love.
Reviews with the most likes.
I quite enjoyed reading this. It was a little slow to start and a bit confusing until a few chapters in and then really took off. One thing I love about this type of story is that the message is in the forefront moreso than the actual writing itself. It has no need to be overly wordy or descriptive and still manages to nail all the key points. Taichi Yamada hits the reader directly over the head with a man whose parents have died and the joy and anguish of having to deal with grieving all over again.
I didn’t love the last couple chapters, but I do think that the ending sort of leaves to interpretation whether or not he could have still gone to see his parents had he not (insert spoiler here).