Beautiful and emotional story about the journey of growing old, the quiet heartbreak of losing memories, and the impact of dementia.

"Maybe we need to lose something if we want to grow up."

This story was so heartwarming, despite the sad topic. It was also very different from Genki Kawamura's other book I've read "What if Cats Disappeared from the World?"

I really liked this story.

A story driven by memories, reminiscence, and the degenerative nature of Dementia. A compelling narrative that draws on the beauty of temporal brightness through life and how light fades in time as we revert to our natural state of experiencing the world at birth. 

The nuances in this novel; fireworks and flowers, metaphorically speaking, how people are alike to these objects, is breathtakingly profound. Humanism is accepting that we start with minimal memories, and our state of being is reliant on wandering, and that is how we revert too. The realism involved through Izumi's experiences of his mother's decline is honest, truthful, and desperate. Izumi clings to the hope that his mother is okay - everything is fine. But reality hits harder and faster when the word 'Dementia' is uttered. 

A captivating read that deals with familial loss and estranged relationships. 

I couldn't remember why I requested this book on Netgalley and I started it expecting something cute and syrupy, like a few Japanese novels I read recently and found a bit similar and disappointing. This was actually a lot darker than I expected - we follow a man in his thirties, Izumi, and his mother Yuriko, nearly seventy and in the early stages of Alzheimer's. 

Izumi is trying to juggle everything - his busy job at a talent agency, his mother who becomes progressively more erratic and more forgetful, and his wife Kaori and him are expecting a baby - neither of them is particularly enthusiastic about it. He also remembers his mother disappearing for a while year when he was fourteen, running off with a married man, but this ended up taking less space in the novel than what the book summary will have you believe. 

It was a really lovely book, compassionate and emotional, and even if we don't get to know Yuriko that well, we really feel Izumi's emotions throughout, his embarrassment when his mother "causes a scene", his anxiety, his fear when she keeps getting worse, his worries about looking after her while working... It had a lot more depth than I had assumed it would have and I found it an interesting and enjoyable read.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley. 

This was a much better translation than If Cats Disappear From the World and whereas the story wasn’t as magical, I really enjoyed it.

This is a very sad book and the passages that were from Yuriko’s point of view showing her trail of consciousness were just heart-breaking, but it also had a lot of warmth to it. It very much gave me the message that when someone is suffering from dementia, while they are losing their more recent memories, they’re also more in touch with their older memories, so there’s stuff to be gained too. This was done in a very subtle way so it didn’t dismiss the pain and hardship of having a loved one with dementia, while still offering that little glimpse of hope.

My nan had dementia before she died, so it gave me a lot of memories of her and that connection, which was nice in some ways but also sad. But it gave me a lot to think about.

Overall, it wasn’t the sort of book I normally read, so I didn’t get caught up in it, but it was enjoyable, and a touching story.

I was gifted this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Crossposted to thewhisperingofthepages.co.uk

Between the lacklustre characters, wonky pacing, and bleak undertones, I didn't have a good time with this one.

Story and Cadence:
🎆 The book felt too long for the story it was trying to tell. All those sections on Izumi’s workplace drove me nuts! They were boring and gratuitous and only seemed to exist to interrupt the flow of the core story!
🎆 The pacing was inconsistent: There were times during the main story that I was rocketing through without noticing my progress; there were other times (during the job scenes or Izumi’s inner monologue) that I struggled to pick the book up and continue with it.
🎆 The overall vibe is quite bleak.

Characters, Relationships, and Setting
🎆 Izumi felt like a child to me. I couldn’t understand his motivations or actions. Why would Izumi wait until his mother had advanced Alzheimer’s to start interrogating her about his father? Like, you’ve had decades to have this conversation and you’re getting pushy about it now? Also, the guy is almost 40 and only just realizes that his mother is a woman? Yikes.
🎆 While Yuriko’s illness and deterioration was upsetting, I couldn’t connect with her as a character either. She seemed almost Oedipal in her obsession with Izumi. Her motivations didn’t make sense either: like she just vanishes without a word leaving a 14/15 year old at home for a year so she can play house with a married man? WTF.
🎆 The relationship between Izumi and Yuriko made me deeply uncomfortable: it felt like they were in a toxic romantic relationship at times and despite being told over and over how close they were, I didn’t get a sense for this at all. They didn't listen to each other or communicate like adults, and felt like they were kinda gaslighting each other with their conflicting memories. It just felt unhealthy to me.
🎆 I hated how neither Izumi or Kaori seemed to want a baby but were just having one anyway. Yeesh, listening to their mental gymnastics was exhausting.
🎆 Despite place name-dropping, I didn’t get a strong sense of place in this book.

Language, Writing, and Presentation:
🎆 There were some beautiful phrases sprinkled throughout the story
🎆 I liked the little illustrations at the beginning of each chapter
🎆 The book had a lot of filler and was longer than it needed to be
🎆 Much of the dialogue was stilted and unnatural, distractingly so. In some cases, it made the characters feel super robotic and inhuman.
🎆 The writing style kept me at arm's length. Despite the sad subject matter, I wasn't able to emotionally connect with the characters or the story like I'd hoped. There was something detached about the writing/translation that kept me on the sidelines throughout the story.
🎆 The note at the end, by another author, telling me how to interpret the story was a bit strange. It felt defensive?

A Note on Translation:
I found the translation rocky. There was a distracting amount of Britishisms and language that made the characters feel more British than Japanese. This may be a personal preference, but I wish translators would take more care about considering what a Japanese person would say or at least use widely-recognized terms for things instead of niche British terms (like “pushchair”). British colloquialisms will draw non-British English speakers out of the narrative and, for me anyway, it makes me question the authenticity of the translation. 

When I finished this book, I felt relief. I was glad to leave the world and characters behind, which isn’t great testimony. 

I had my request to review this book approved by Bonnier Books on NetGalley.