Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free digital ARC of this one! This is my third Hiromi Kawakami, and it was super different from the others - in a good way! She’s ventured into the science fiction realm, exploring a near future where humans have gone extinct and been slowly reintroduced through cloning. If I hadn’t read How High We Go in the Dark a couple of weeks before, I probably would have enjoyed this even more, but they’re quite similar in their themes and structure, and HHWGITD just did it better in my opinion. But if you like quiet, humanity-driven science fiction, like Station Eleven, you’ll really appreciate this one!

As it’s told in interconnected vignettes, I think it’s a good idea to read it in decent sized chunks. I read it while super busy with work, and so it took me almost a week and by the end of the week, when I came across a character’s POV mentioned earlier in the book, their role wasn’t as fresh in my mind as I’d like it to be. I think it would be much more satisfying to have all of those a-ha! moments. 

I think it’s one I’ll revisit in the future, hopefully with more time to dedicate to it! As it stands, I still found it thoroughly engaging.