I loved everything about this book. There were moments with almost every character that I felt deeply connected to them and the way they felt. 

Not being from Japan but reading primarily Japanese authors, I have a big map of Japan that I pull out when I read books that focus a lot on location and scenery to understand and get more context. Still, the opening of this book, and many chapters, felt like they just spent too much time describing places to an extent they didn’t need to be. The opening was needlessly dry, I tried the book months ago and couldn’t get into it for that reason. That’s what knocked it down from 5 stars for me. It was just too much and unnecessary to the plot.