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Raul's Reviews > Out
Out
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by
About the first 60% of this book was the most incredible crime story I have ever read. Brilliant characterization where the characters leap and skip and kill off the pages.
Masako, Kuniko, Yoshie and Yayoi form a relationship working part-time at night in a food factory. All these women have troubles in their personal lives, and most of them because they're women in a violent and misogynistic society. Violence and abuse against women, mistreatment and inequality in the workplace, objectification and a very strange obsession for youth that verges (and is very blatant at points) on the pedophilic and where women are deemed unattractive and disposable past the age of thirty and of course treated even worse when deemed unattractive, and the strain of doing all the labour and care in domestic settings. Pressure weighs on these women; something happens and something snaps and a murder is committed and covered up, and someone becomes falsely accused and seeks revenge. I won't divulge more on the plot because a good part of this story moves along with what is revealed. This was really good storytelling, that is, until it wasn't.
The truth is there was so much going on at the same time, and I expected the story to give in and fold into itself the way collapsed stars do too. When all the material has been used up and it all just folds and it is done. Which is what happened somewhere past the halfway mark, and credit to the writer they kept it going longer than I thought it would. Too many coincidences that couldn't be ignored even though they made for exciting parts, too many holes that couldn't be filled, and things just got progressively worse the more the story advanced, culminating in a bathetic (and personally, unconvincing) ending.
Yet I still think this is a good book in the end, and that it does a great job exploring the many subjects it does: misogyny, xenophobia, the predatory financial systems that are meant to leach off all they can on individuals, violence and what it does to the person it is inflicted on and the person that does the inflicting, as well as that function of literature which is to touch and prick on what is taboo. Despite the disappointment of how certain parts and characters are handled (the last third of this book really didn't read like it was written by the person who had done the previous portion), and the ending which was meant to be shocking and a way to keep up with all the unexpected scandalous points happening throughout the book and provide a climax but instead ended up feeling trite and insipid, this was good. But just like a collapsed star that releases fragments of itself into space and is reduced to something that doesn't resemble its more powerful and luminescent former form, I ended up longing and mourning for the earlier brilliant part of this book.
Masako, Kuniko, Yoshie and Yayoi form a relationship working part-time at night in a food factory. All these women have troubles in their personal lives, and most of them because they're women in a violent and misogynistic society. Violence and abuse against women, mistreatment and inequality in the workplace, objectification and a very strange obsession for youth that verges (and is very blatant at points) on the pedophilic and where women are deemed unattractive and disposable past the age of thirty and of course treated even worse when deemed unattractive, and the strain of doing all the labour and care in domestic settings. Pressure weighs on these women; something happens and something snaps and a murder is committed and covered up, and someone becomes falsely accused and seeks revenge. I won't divulge more on the plot because a good part of this story moves along with what is revealed. This was really good storytelling, that is, until it wasn't.
The truth is there was so much going on at the same time, and I expected the story to give in and fold into itself the way collapsed stars do too. When all the material has been used up and it all just folds and it is done. Which is what happened somewhere past the halfway mark, and credit to the writer they kept it going longer than I thought it would. Too many coincidences that couldn't be ignored even though they made for exciting parts, too many holes that couldn't be filled, and things just got progressively worse the more the story advanced, culminating in a bathetic (and personally, unconvincing) ending.
Yet I still think this is a good book in the end, and that it does a great job exploring the many subjects it does: misogyny, xenophobia, the predatory financial systems that are meant to leach off all they can on individuals, violence and what it does to the person it is inflicted on and the person that does the inflicting, as well as that function of literature which is to touch and prick on what is taboo. Despite the disappointment of how certain parts and characters are handled (the last third of this book really didn't read like it was written by the person who had done the previous portion), and the ending which was meant to be shocking and a way to keep up with all the unexpected scandalous points happening throughout the book and provide a climax but instead ended up feeling trite and insipid, this was good. But just like a collapsed star that releases fragments of itself into space and is reduced to something that doesn't resemble its more powerful and luminescent former form, I ended up longing and mourning for the earlier brilliant part of this book.
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Esther wrote: "Interesting review.I read this several years ago and enjoyed it, as much a you can enjoy a story this dark.
I felt the ending was a little weak because it was too convenient but it was still a 5 ..."
Thank you Esther. I'm glad you enjoyed it, I think I could say I did too. I still think it was a solid read and debated with myself between a four and three star rating but the ending, weak as you've mentioned, wasn't the only part I was disappointed with.
Raul, I think I understand your disappointment with the second half of the book. It is not nice when the book has the reader turned on in full, but then, it goes downhill as if the author has lost the connection with the book and so on. As for your review... wow, delightful!
Márcio wrote: "Raul, I think I understand your disappointment with the second half of the book. It is not nice when the book has the reader turned on in full, but then, it goes downhill as if the author has lost ..."Exactly Márcio! Maybe it might have been better if the first half hadn't been as brilliant as it was. And thank you so much :)
Steven wrote: "Have you ever read Ryu Murakami?"No I haven't, and strange enough I remember that he was referenced in this story. Is he a writer you would recommend Steven?
Yepp!! Same goes for The Grotesque, the second half of the book is unnecesary
Ryu Murakami also writes in similar atmosphere but more gruesome and disturbing!!
I read this several years ago and enjoyed it, as much a you can enjoy a story this dark.
I felt the ending was a little weak because it was too convenient but it was still a 5 star read for me.