by Koushun Takami
rating: ☆
published: April 1999
spoilers? no
Goodreads
How to I explain how much I despised this book? Let's just say that if I could rate a book zero stars on this site, this book would be one I would give that honour to.
I started this book way back in June. I picked it up just before I headed back home from uni, but I only read one chapter before I realised that I just wasn't in the mood for a dystopia like this. It sat on my desk, unread, for a good month, before I packed it to go on holiday because I just really wanted to get it read finally.
Good Lord, do I wish I hadn't.
The writing in this is terrible, and I don't know if that's because this was a clunky translation or if the writing is genuinely that bad. Either way, it was so cringeworthy I just couldn't take any of it seriously. Every time I read a bit out to my parents (we were all stuck in a tent and it was raining), I got a round of groans or snorts of laughter, depending on whether the particular part I'd chosen was bad, or so-bad-you-really-have-to-laugh. And don't even get me started on the song lyrics that were thrown in at random, because the main character loves rock music. The goddamn book literally ended with the lyrics of 'Born to Run' by Bruce Springsteen! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Then there's the characters. There were so many of them, I genuinely lost track. And none of them seem to have any personality. You can sum each of them up using one, maybe two (if they're lucky), words and there, you're done. Not to mention I just wanted to slap the main character around a bit to, one, get rid of his naivety ("oh no, we all just want to work together," he says, as everyone starts killing everyone else), and two, to get him to shut up with that lowkey misogynism. He genuinely says at one point, that the girl would make a good wife. Miss me with that, thanks.
So yeah. Christ do I wish I hadn't bothered.
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