Well, if the sign of good writing is to make you feel like characters in the story feel, then perhaps the Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami is greWell, if the sign of good writing is to make you feel like characters in the story feel, then perhaps the Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami is great writing. Because main character Hitomi's general ambivalence about and confusion with life in general left me feeling very meh myself. I didn't hate the book. I just didn't really care about any of it. Not the romance with reserved and taciturn Takeo. Not the odd and awkward and unfaithful titular Mr Nakano or his charming sister Masayo. The novelty of the story and characters carried me through a few chapters, but reading this book in 2020 did it no favors, and I ended up setting it down for months at a time. I finally pushed through it at the end of the year, to be able to count it towards my Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, but ended up disappointed. I had previously enjoyed Strange Weather in Tokyo/ The Briefcase by the same author, and I suppose that was a bit ambivalent in tone as well. But it was really difficult to care about characters who were so unsure of what they wanted, and were so inclined to hurt others, accidentally or not. The only thing I really enjoyed was the strong sense of life in urban Tokyo and the various elements of Japanese culture throughout the book.
I did feel that perhaps there was something missing in translation. This book is translated from the Japanese, and while I'm sure the translation itself is excellent, I found myself wondering if there were cultural aspects to the characters and their interactions that the original audience would have understood, that would have informed my appreciation of this story better, were I aware of them. That would be a deficit in my understanding, not in the writing, but without additional knowledge, I really don't know if it's me or the writing itself or some of both that is the problem. Maybe an annotated edition with footnotes about relevant cultural context would be more enjoyable for non-Japanese readers?
Either way, I was left ambivalent, and had to force myself to finish the book. I do not agree with the cover blurb that calls The Nakano Thrift Shop charming and wise. Yes, the book was full of deftly sketched character studies of eccentric people, but the character sketches and Japanese culture wasn't enough to hold my attention or win my affection. If you were interested in trying the author, I would instead recommend Strange Weather in Tokyo....more
Once, long ago, before the current pandemic shut the world down, I started a delightful book called Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia, wOnce, long ago, before the current pandemic shut the world down, I started a delightful book called Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia, which I'd been granted as a free digital ARC from NetGalley. Then the pandemic came and derailed my reading habit, which I've slowly been rebuilding. And five months after I started it, I finally finished Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, reading the last thirty percent in two nights, staying up far too late (early?) to do so. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is a lot of fun, with a clever, twisting plot and a story that reminded me of a more socially conscious and emotionally developed Westing Game, which I had finally read just last year. Like the Westing Game, there's a central quest/ game, with a vast fortune as the potential payoff, an eccentric dead billionaire setting the plot in motion, and a cast of quirky, imperfect, often pretty damaged characters competing for the prize.
There are plenty of differences from the Westing Game, though. I like to describe this as an adult goth version of the Westing Game, set in Boston. There's a lot more character building than in the Westing Game, a lot more angst, more discussion of sex and relationships, and even a ghost. Or is there? Or is it just mental illness? There's a bunch of darkly quirky characters, from a Madonna-cosplaying flamboyant gay corporate hotshot, to a bereavement-traumatized shy Asian-Jewish teenage girl, to the over-the-top deceased billionaire who is "not that Vincent Pryce", to a charming man of mystery with trust and intimacy issues, to the titular Tuesday Mooney, a socially awkward goth loner who researches people for a living and who talks to what may or may not be the ghost of her friend Abby, who died when they were both in high school. There's also the vivid and richly drawn setting in Boston, some sly social commentary, and a host of other quirky characters, lots of dysfunctional families, and a game whose stakes may just be far more complex than originally suggested.
There's also a lot of geeky and nerdy Easter eggs, frequent allusions to pop culture, like Madonna and Prince, historical asides, like a reference early in the story to Lord Carnarvon and his curse (Lord Carnarvon, the British noble and amateur Egyptologist, died of what some called a curse associated with opening and excavating the Egyptian pyramids. He was also one of the lords of what was basically the real Downton Abbey...but I digress.), and even some love for books, authors, and libraries (as it should be).
There is a fair amount of diversity in the story. Tuesday Mooney herself may just be a tall goth white woman who may or may not be mentally ill. But her teenage neighbor and unlikely friend Dorry is half Jewish, half Asian, and Dorry's new friend and possible love interest Ned is Black. Tuesday's best friend Dex is a somewhat closeted gay man who buttons up his love of musical theater, of makeup and performance and attention, behind his powerful corporate persona. Everyone is portrayed in what seems to be a sensitive and informed manner, and the story is interspersed with wryly witty commentary and asides on various aspects of privilege at work, from wealth to race to gender to sexuality. The story briefly touches on topics like gentrification and racial discrimination in policing and ingrained traditional gender and marriage expectations and American healthcare and pharmaceutical profiteering, and offers serious depictions of grief, mental illness, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, including severe physical violence.
At the core of this story, running parallel to the mystery, with all its twists and turns, is a theme of human connectedness, of birth and found families and the love between friends that can run as deep as any romantic love, and the feeling of hopefulness that can accompany meaningful romantic connections, even between people who are struggling and broken. Maybe especially between those lonely outsiders. After all, "having someone care about you makes you want to give a shit, especially if you're having trouble caring about yourself." The tender ties of relationship between Tuesday and Next Dorry, Tuesday and her friend Dex, and Tuesday and her possibly untrustworthy partner Archie, as well as relationships between several of the other characters take this story to another level of heartfelt authenticity, but with enough wit and self deprecation to avoid being maudlin.
By the end, I got a little frustrated with the main plot, with the twists and turns and coincidences and machinations of the game almost becoming too much for me, exhaustingly, unrelentingly clever. I felt a bit like I did after watching Inception, with how my head almost hurt trying to follow the intersections and plot turns and reveals. But the human connections of the characters continued to ground this story, to showcase the worth of each character, and to affirm the interconnectedness of all humans. Those connections and that commentary is what made this otherwise clever and suspenseful story truly resonate with me. And they are what will encourage me to buy the story and reread it, hopefully in one solid reading, uninterrupted by pandemics and fascism. If you like games and quirky characters and sly humor and all things kitchily macabre, but peopled with real, resonant characters, you will probably love Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts as much or more than I did.
Above all, as the story reminds us, "Don't hoard what you've been given, because you think it's all you're going to get. Be generous. And be generous now, because the future isn't a destination. It's an extension of how we choose to live today."
Thank you to #NetGalley and Houghton Miffling Harcourt for letting me read a free digital #advancedcopy of #TuesdayMooneyTalksToGhosts . This is my honest opinion....more
CrystalIsReading on Storygraph
>
Books:
fiction
(162)
Loading...
