Book Review: The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

Japanese modern fiction is something I enjoy and read occasionally. I’m a fan of Haruki Murakami (e.g., The Wind-up Bird Chronicle) and I also loved books like The Devotion of Suspect X and Battle Royale.

The Thief is not typically Japanese, I thought. It’s set in Japan, but it could have taken place in other locations quite easily. I didn’t like it more or less because of that, it’s just an observation!

The Thief: What it is about

What the publishers say: “A Toyko pickpocket commits one crime too many – and finds himself way out of his depth. A taut, stylish noir thriller from one of the most feted new voices in Japanese fiction.

Nishimura is a seasoned pickpocket, weaving through Tokyo’s crowded streets, in search of potential targets. He has no family, no friends, no connections . . . But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when his old partner-in-crime reappears and offers him a job he can’t refuse. Suddenly, Nishimura finds himself caught in a web so tangled and intricate that even he might not be able to escape.“

The Thief: What I thought

This is a very well-written story about a pick-pocket. I loved reading about his methods to steals people’s wallets and how he got into the profession. I didn’t like it when he got involved with a gangster-type. It was not of his own volition and quite easy to see how this might happen. Still, what happened after that, was more interesting than I had expected.

The thief is clever and creative with his skills. Except for picking pockets, he seems quite an honest person, ready to help out others in need when he can. So, I quite liked him as a main character.

The story itself is sometimes confusing (I wasn’t always sure what was happening now and in the past) but it stays interesting until the (bitter) ending.

What it lacked (a little) in plot, it more than made up by writing style and the topic. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this short book.

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 212

First published: 2009 (Japanese edition; UK edition: 2012 (hardback), May 2013 (paperback))

I got this: from Corsair for review

Genre: contemporary fiction

Book Review: The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

This is yet another book about a secret history. Yawn! Aren’t there too many books about that already? Well, who cares? This book is fantastic! I loved every page of it (and there are quite a few).

The Perfume Collector: What it is about

What the publishers say: “London, 1955: Grace Monroe is a fortunate young woman. Despite her sheltered upbringing in Oxford, her recent marriage has thrust her into the heart of London’s most refined and ambitious social circles. However, playing the role of the sophisticated socialite her husband would like her to be doesn’t come easily to her—and perhaps never will.

Then one evening a letter arrives from France that will change everything. Grace has received an inheritance. There’s only one problem: she has never heard of her benefactor, the mysterious Eva d’Orsey.

So begins a journey that takes Grace to Paris in search of Eva. There, in a long-abandoned perfume shop on the Left Bank, she discovers the seductive world of perfumers and their muses, and a surprising, complex love story. Told by invoking the three distinctive perfumes she inspired, Eva d’Orsey’s story weaves through the decades, from 1920s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris, and London.

But these three perfumes hold secrets. And as Eva’s past and Grace’s future intersect, Grace realizes she must choose between the life she thinks she should live and the person she is truly meant to be.“

The Perfume Collector: What I thought

I enjoyed reading this book so much! It was a very quick read, and I found it hard to put it down. Grace inherits a lot of money as well as a beautiful apartment in Paris. Wonderful! We readers get a look around the apartment and while it’s meant to be sold, I hoped Grace would be able to keep it and maybe live in it herself.

Most of the story is about Grace trying to find out why she has been left all this wealth. She doesn’t know the deceased and rather than accepting the inheritance just like that, she wants to find out who this Eva d’Orsey is. In a sense, the book is a mystery in which Grace, step-by-step, tries to find out how Eva knew her. Her search brings her to an abandoned perfume shop and an old lady who lives above it.

It’s also the story of Eva, who we find 30 years earlier, in the 1920s, working as young woman in a New York hotel. Here she meets all kinds of guests, some of which play a role in her further life. Most of these guests are flamboyant types and it’s good fun reading about their antics while staying in the hotel. Eva isn’t supposed to talk to the guests, but she does make some life-long friends there.

There is a really good sense of place and time. I especially loved reading about the hotel where Eva worked and about the perfume shop. The story is build up well, and I couldn’t stop reading and finding more about Eva and about Grace’s search for Eva’s history.

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 464

First published: 2013

I got this: from Harper for review

Genre: historical fiction

Book Review: Wild Abandon by Joe Dunthorne

This author is new to me but comes highly recommended by my friend. She read this book and Submarine by the same author. When I found out that Joe Dunthorne would be present at a 30-author book club (each author discussing their book with 25 people), I booked us in. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the book as much as I’d hoped. In the book club (last night), we only discussed what we liked about the book, so that was pretty safe!

Wild Abandon: What it is about

What the publishers say: “Kate and Albert, sister and brother, are not yet the last two human beings on earth, but Albert is hopeful. The secluded communal farm they grew up on is – after twenty years – disintegrating, taking their parents’ marriage with it. They both try to escape: Kate, at seventeen, to a suburbia she knows only through fiction and Albert, at eleven, into preparations for the end of the world – which is coming, he is sure.

And then there is Don: father of the family, leader and maker of elaborate speeches. Faced with the prospect of saving his community, his marriage, his son from apocalyptic visions and his daughter from impending men, he sets to work on reunifying the commune by bringing it into the modern age, through self-sufficiency, charisma and a rave with a 10k sound system.

The last day on earth is coming. Bring your own booze.“

Wild Abandon: What I thought

It all starts quite funny, with Kate (17) sharing a shower with her younger brother Albert (11), but deciding soon after that maybe she’s too old for that. Albert is very keen to keep the family ties fastened, but Kate is ready to explore the world.

Albert knows the world’s end is nigh. In a way, it is indeed. The family, and community, is falling apart bit by bit.

I liked it how Kate opposed her parents by not wanting to be hippyish. She doesn’t wear her big skirts to school and has very limited experience with drug taking (something her uncle Patrick has taken too far).

There were some very fun moments in the story in general, and they were a pleasure to read. But after a while, I got bored with this book, even though it was quite short. I liked Kate but didn’t really care much for the other protagonists. Albert I found a weird kid, Patrick was weird too, Don a little tragic, and his wife deserved a book of her own.

I would have liked a bit more of a plot. The story did go somewhere, but very slowly.

I did finish the book, rather more slowly than I’d hope for such a short book, but I lost most of my enjoyment of reading it towards the end. Such a pity, as it started really quite good!

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 244

First published: 2011

I got this: bought it for a book club event

Genre: contemporary fiction

Quick Book Review: Schroder by Amity Gaige

This book is a long letter from a man, Eric Kennedy, formerly known as Eric Schroder, to his wife Laura. But this is not one long boring letter. A lot of the book is the story of what happened when Eric took his small daughter on an unscheduled trip. Sometimes he refers to “you”, Laura, but in general this is merely a story as told by Eric.

Eric Kennedy has reinvented himself when he was 14. Having moved to the USA from Germany at the age of 9, he worked hard to get rid of his accent, and felt he needed an “old” name (with a hint of belonging to that family) to count in the American society. So, he dropped his German name, Schroder, and adopted the name Kennedy.

No one, not even his wife, know his real identity, or that he was born in Germany. Eric tells the story of how he met Laura, and the story he told her about his past. After he and Laura separate, he is only allowed to see his daughter Meadow every now and then. On one occasion, he decides to take her on a road trip and they keep going. Soon, the police are looking for them.

Beautifully written, but not a difficult read, actually quite a fast read for this kind of book. A very personal document about a father’s love for his daughter and how he is naive to think his wife would be fair in their child custody process. It’s also about Eric’s quest to become accepted as an American, neglecting his old father on the way.

Rating: 4.5

Number of pages: 272

First published: 2013

I got this book: bought it at the local book store

Genre: contemporary fiction

Have you read this book?

Did you enjoy it?

Book Review: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

I’ve read only one other book by Joe Hill: Horns. It was something rather different to what I normally read, but I enjoyed it a lot. So, I was keen to read this new book by Joe Hill.

It’s been described as Horror, but there isn’t a great deal of scary stuff going on, at least not at first. There is nothing where you’d want to peek between your fingers while reading because you can’t handle it. But it is a crazy story in which a child abductor plays a large part.

NOS4A2: What it is about

The book focuses mostly on Vic McQueen who we meet as a girl. She has a really nice bicycle with which she can cross a derelict bridge in order to find back items that are missing. The bridge brings her to a completely different part of the USA, where she collects/finds the missing item, then rides her bike back over the bridge and arrives back home. One day, she comes across a man, Charlie Manx, who has a child locked in the back of his car. When she tries to release the boy, he comes after her.

Charlie Manx has built Christmasland, a wonderful Christmas experience for all the children he saves from their terrible parents. All the children he abducts end up there, for ever.

NOS4A2: What I thought

This is a big, big book, but didn’t bore me for even one minute. The pace is good and the writing is fun. The reader sometimes gets to read about Charlie Manx and his helper, the Gasmask Man and so, gets some insight into what Vic and other children awaits, when they are caught.

Vic, as an adult, is the real hero of the story. She does everything she can to catch Charlie Manx and destroy his Christmasland, after he returns while she is at a low point in her life. The vulnerable, unstable woman develops into a Die Hard hero who fights Manx until the bitter end.

I found the story very original, clever, funny, and also very believable – the only problem I had was with the fantasy part of the story. As I tend to read contemporary fiction in which everything that happens, could happen, I had to wrap my brain around the idea that Christmasland existed in Charlie Manx fantasy rather than in reality. But still, children were abducted to it and Vic also goes there. So, it took me a while to adapt to this idea. This is not a negative aspect of the book, though, I loved trying to understand how it might work.

Definitely worth a read for anyone that likes a book with crazy ideas and a rollercoaster ending.

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 704

First published: 2013

I got this: for review from the publishers, William Morrow

Genre: horror

Quick Book Review: The Dinner by Herman Koch

This is a book by a Dutch writer that I, being Dutch myself, have read before (in Dutch). Now that the book has become quite popular (or: well-known) outside The Netherlands, I decided to re-read it. Last time (a few years ago), I enjoyed reading the book. This time around… I loved it!

Two couples, the men are brothers, meet for dinner in a posh restaurant in Amsterdam. One of the brothers is a well-known politician, while the other, the narrator, has always stood in his shadow. They need to discuss their two 15-year old sons, who have committed a crime that could have consequences for all of them. The story is told in courses and develops into a very unexpected ending.

This started really well, as I found the observations of the narrator, Paul Lohman, very to the point and funny. For a while, he and I got along really well, until he developed in a man that I could not identify with at all. Paul describes what happens in the restaurant but also looks back on the weeks before the dinner, and further back in time, when Paul and his brother Serge were children.

The way Paul talked about his brother was so poignant: his brother was the important man, the politician who looked down on his brother. But that was nothing new, it was always like that. Paul was bitter about that, but also felt superior in some ways. He had a lot of great comments on the very expensive restaurant where his brother, prime minister to be, managed to reserve a table at short notice, rather than be put on the 5-month long waiting list like other people.

But of course, this book is really about the crime that Paul and Serge’s sons have committed and how they, the parents, are planning to deal with it. They disagree and eventually the evening escalates into something that went rather too far for me, as a solution to the conflict. That was my only negative point about the book.

In all other respects this was a fantastic book to read and a good novel for book clubs, as there is a lot that can be discussed.

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Rating: 5/5

Number of pages: 304

First published: 2010 (Netherlands)

I got this book: gifted (Dutch version: Het diner)

Genre: contemporary fiction

Have you read this book?

Did you enjoy it?

Book Review: Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley

Amity & Sorrow: What it is about

From the publishers: “A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she’s convinced will follow them wherever they go–her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can’t imagine what the world holds outside their father’s polygamous compound.

Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley’s abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity & Sorrow is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.”

Amity & Sorrow: What I thought

In this book, we follow a mother and her two daughters for a few months, after they have left the religious commune where the girls have lived all their life. They are on the run for their father, their mother’s husband, who has a total of fifty wives and many children living with him.

Amity and Sorrow only know life in the commune and are totally ignorant about the world outside. They believe their father is God and are not at all happy that their mother took them away.

Bit by bit, the reader finds out the full story about the commune and the reason the mother left. Bradley, the farmer who is not happy to find them on their doorstep, slowly defrosts into a supportive person.

I really enjoyed reading this. The story is told in a kind of simple, sparse narrative that tells the reader enough to follow the story, but also makes curious as to the full story. Not only do you want to know what exactly happened in the commune, but also what will happen to the three of them next. Will the husband find them? Will they stay at the farm, even though Bradley doesn’t want them? Will the girls flee back home without their mother?

A well-set out story that reminded me a little of The First Book of Calamity Leek (Paula Lichtarowicz) because of the naïvity of the girls, and of Dirt (David Vann) because of the rural setting and the painful family relationships.

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 320

First published: 2013

I got this: from the publishers, Hachette Books via Netgalley (e-galley)

Genre: contemporary fiction