Really enjoyed this! There was a super nice balance of the typical Cozy Mystery tropes and more realistic views of what being a part of a mystery like this would seem like for the average person.

Longer review to come, maybe? Work has made me a ball of stress for a while and my thoughts for books right now mostly boil down to "book good, yay".

DNFing the audiobook on this re-read. I can't. I just can't. I barely remember anything from this from my first read almost 15 years ago other than Will and Lyra separating, and I see why now! It's boring and plodding and none of these characters make sense anymore.

3.5 stars for a very sweet, very wholesome story that is straightforward about its morality and the messages it wants to tell.

However, I couldn't shake the feeling that I've seen this all before. I kept thinking of Good Omens and Discworld, and this book felt much in the same vein as those novels with the exception being the LGBTQ rep.

Did I totally 100% truly like this? I don't think so. Would I recommend it for anyone looking for a bright, sweet story to feel good about? Absolutely.

Bullet Train is kind of wild, and I'm not sure how to review it. I'm never sure how fair I can be with translated works simply because I never know if I don't like or understand certain things due to translation issues, cultural issues, or something else.

However, I enjoyed this as an overall story. It reminded me of Tarantino in terms of the cast all coming together in various ways, but it felt much more like Guy Ritchie's madcap storytelling style. I point out movie similarities, because this reads like a movie more than a novel. I kept thinking about how neat it would be to see this all play out as a film - and surprise, it's already in the works.

The characters are all interesting, and though the book didn't really have time to dig too deep into every one, I got a really great idea of who each person was. Their quirks, their likes and dislikes, how they felt about being on the Shinkansen, and they all felt very believable as the events unfolded. (Believable in the context of this book, because they're all insane otherwise.)

The pace is pretty breakneck, and the story is set out as something simple that snowballs into complicated and weird pairings of characters and interactions but it all still made sense. Hell, I kind of cheered when a fucking Thomas the Tank Engine sticker became a big plot point.

Madness, in the best way possible.

(I received this as an e-ARC from NetGalley for review. The English translation will be available August 3rd, 2021.)

The audio absolutely MADE this for me. Ray Porter is fantastic at giving the narration life and emotion, and they did some damn clever and interesting stuff with

Spoiler

Rocky as Grace first meets him, and then as they both learn each other's language. Rocky's lines all have a neat chord-like synthesizer change to them to truly give an idea of what he might have sounded like to Grace.

Was this pretty much The Martian 2.0, from Grace being just like Mark Watney and sciencing the shit out of all his problems to having flashbacks to Earth coming together to save humanity(/Mark)? Yes.

Did I enjoy every single bit of it and cry at the end? HELL YES.