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abbie_ 's review for:

In The Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami
3.75
dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is only for those of you with a strong stomach! Ryū Murakami’s fiction is definitely on the dark side, and I feel like I jumped in at the deep end with the first book I picked up by him. Usually I’m not a huge fan of really gory books, but this one also had a surprisingly philosophical element to it that I really liked!
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Set in Tokyo, Kenji is a tour guide who shows tourists around the city’s red light district. But his latest client, an American named Frank, gives Kenji an ominous feeling. He begins to suspect that Frank’s tastes might be on the murderous side...
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Murakami builds up a fabulous layer of tension throughout part one - who is Frank? What are his intentions? Is he even human? My skin was crawling almost the entire time, until one of the bloodiest scenes I’ve ever read erupts in part two. I feel like I had a taster of what I’m in for with American Psycho! If not worse!
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But amid all the blood and brain matter, Murakami makes you question the human psyche and what could drive someone to commit such atrocious acts. He expounds on fear and loneliness with a profundity I was not expecting from what is essentially a slasher. 
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There’s a lot of playing with language as Frank speaks no Japanese and his conversations with Kenji and other characters often play into the language barrier, but the translator Ralph McCarthy pulls it off!
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Not a perfect novel, and with characters ranging from morally dubious to downright evil, this one won’t be for everyone, but if you’ve got a taste for morbid fiction then give this one a try!