A bloated, uninteresting mess that needs at least a quarter of its length slashed away. At least.

I don’t usually give books as low of a rating as 1 star, but three things put me over the edge:

1. The treatment of Oshima is pretty damn appalling. Constantly treated as an ‘other’ for being a trans person (the word ‘trans’ is never mentioned). The narrative will occasionally misgender him. It’s gross.

2. Early in the book are interview transcripts describing an incident during WWII that we find out pertain to the character of Nakata. Other than the ‘twist’ that they provide, there seems to be no other point to them.

3. I don’t care if the novel is basing itself from Oedipus: the sex scenes are absolutely abominable. Sorry, but reading a description of a 15 year old having sex with a 50 year old woman who’s also his mother isn’t profound or artistic: it’s just skuzzy. This also goes for the tasteless and -disgusting- rape scene involving the older sister.

Ugh