Others: Positive Genres: fantasy, literary fiction
Lists: …
Ruth L. Ozeki
2013 · 480 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveIn Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, she plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace. Across the Pacific a novelist living on a remote island discovers artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox and is pulled into Nao's drama and her unknown fate. (Bestseller)
What made the match, strongest first
Julia Phillips
2024 · 304 pages · 4 reviews
Others: PositiveA mesmerising novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor — a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods, by the celebrated, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth. They were sisters and they would last past the end of time. Sam and her sister, Elena, dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works long days on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence. Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the plan to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger. A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us — and within us — Bear is a propulsive, mythical, rich novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.
What made the match, strongest first
Helen Oyeyemi
2014 · 312 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Mostly negativeThis novel is a reimagining of the fairy tale Snow White recast as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity set in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty, the opposite of the life she has left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she would become, but when the birth of Boy's daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white, elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out . Now Boy, Snow, and Bird must confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold. -- From book jacket
What made the match, strongest first
Italo Calvino
2017 · 128 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive115 pages ; 21 cm
What made the match, strongest first
Haruki Murakami
2013 · 304 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveTsukuru Tazaki reexamines his simple life as he searches for his closest high school friends to discover why he was suddenly ostracized from their group. "Cuando Tsukuru Tazakiera adolescente, se sentaba durante horas en las estaciones para ver pasar los trenes. Ahora, con treinta y seis años, es un ingeniero que diseña y construye estaciones de ferrocarril y que lleva una vida tranquila, tal vez demasiado solitaria. Cuando conoce a Sara, una mujer por la que se siente atraído, empieza a plantearse cuestiones que creía definitivamente zanjadas. Entre otras, un traumático episodio de su juventud: cuando iba a la universidad, el que fue su grupo de amigos desde la adolescencia cortó bruscamente, sin dar explicaciones, toda relación con él, y la experiencia fue tan dolorosa que Tsukuru incluso acarició la idea del suicidio. Ahora, dieciséis años despuís, quizá logre averiguar qué sucedió exactamente. Ecos del pasado y del presente, pianistas capaces de predecir la muerte y de ver el color de las personas, manos de seis dedos, sueños perturbadores, muchachas frágiles y muertes que suscitan interrogantes componen el paisaje, pautado por las notas de Los años de peregrinaciónde Liszt, por el que Tsukuru viajará en busca de sentimientos largo tiempo ocultos. Decididamente, le ha llegado la hora de subirse a un tren."--P. [4] of cover.
What made the match, strongest first
Hiroko Oyamada
2019 · 128 pages · 2 reviews
Others: MixedIn an unnamed Japanese city, three seemingly normal and unrelated characters find work at a sprawling industrial factory. They each focus intently on their specific jobs: one studies moss, one shreds paper, and the other proofreads incomprehensible documents. Life in the factory has its own logic and momentum, and, eventually, the factory slowly expands and begins to take over everything, enveloping these poor workers. The very margins of reality seem to be dissolving: all forms of life capriciously evolve, strange creatures begin to appear. After a while, it could be weeks or years, the workers don't even have the ability to ask themselves: where does the factory end and the rest of the world begin? Told in three alternating first-person narratives, The Factory casts a vivid--if sometimes surreal--portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of modern life. With hints of Kafka and unexpected moments of creeping humor, Hiroko Oyamada is one of the boldest writers of her generation.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itI personally just really loved his writing style and their books where when I think about them back not in the same way I was talking about false witness where I find the book forgettable they both had some pretty disturbing imagery that I can't stop thinking about the endings really stuck with me even though again they're very vague.
