Short, no spoilers review

I'm a big fan of short stories. And whilst this is shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly powerful. I read it in a matter of minutes but pondered the themes and applicabilty across cultures long afterwards. Certainly stands the test of time and should not be overlooked. 

List of themes: mob mentality, questioning the role of tradition, scapegoating, senseless violence, community. 

No spoiler short review 

This informative book acts as a good introduction to attachment theory for people who are not familiar with the subject. It's strength is that is has lots of quizzes and exercises you can work through to better understand your own attachment style and behaviours. The reason I haven't scored it higher is due to some limitations. 1) there is less time spent on the avoidant type, and no time  at all spent on the disorganised type. 2) the examples given are exclusively heteronormative, it could benefit form being updated to be more inclusive and recognising the part heteronormativity plays in attachment theory. 3) It really is a very basic introduction to the subject and gets repetitive in the second half of the book. If you'd like to learn more about attachment theory I'd recommend next reading Daniel Siegel's works. 

It's a no from me. Boring. Short review with no content spoilers.
 
Personally, this book did not interest me at all. It focuses predominantly upon a grieving family and how they all come to terms and learn to live with loss of a loved one. I don't think it was particularly insightful, beyond an obvious, but well described portrayal of a woman trapped by society's strict role of motherhood. The narrator is telling the story from the point of view from heaven, which again, I didn't not find novel or interesting. There is a lot of 'fluff' or 'filler' material that doesn't drive forward the plot, because essentially there is no plot, which I suppose is an accurate representation of the emotional healing it's trying to explore. The murder investigation and subplot following the murderer is very much an afterthought and underwhelming. I honestly do not understand why people emotionally connect with this book. It strikes me as someone who hasn't experienced this level of trauma, trying to romanticise it. It was honestly, so boring. 

Short no spoilers review.

It's difficult to give an overall rating as the book is compromised of several short stories, poems, and a novella. (You can read each of these in any order). I've given it 4 stars overall as I appreciated the author's unique style and I think the collection works well together. She combines Eastern and Japanese short story literary devices, personal autobiographical influence, science fiction, and lots of Japanese folk lore. The end result is quite magical. If you're not familiar with Japanese folklore you will sometimes understand from the context that it's presented, and sometimes you might need to look a word or two up. 

Short stories I enjoyed:

The melancholy of mechagirl (loved the flow and combination of scifi words). Fifteen panels of the Baku and the Jotai (an easier story to follow whilst being introduced to Japanese creatures I didn't know before). Ghosts of Gunkanjima (a little heavy handed but effective at bringing this historic place's horrors to light). Story no. 6 (imaginative, intriguing short story, easy to follow). Fade to white (obvious Western caricature and criticism, excellent weaving of two stories and inclusion of scifi elements). Killswitch (fascinating. This story was the one most grounded in reality, interesting commentary on society). The girl with two skins (devastating to read, even more interesting when you research the symbolism of foxes in Japanese culture). Silently and very fast (this is the novella and makes up a good 40% of the total book. Focusing on artificial intelligence, the story is rich in visual imagery but also has a genuinely unique commentary on the moral existence, purpose of, and place for AI in a human universe.)

Short stories I didn't enjoy:

Ink water milk (I enjoyed it at the time of reading, but quickly forgot about it). Thirteen ways of looking at space time (I was torn where to place this one. I really enjoyed a few of the thirteen installments, and I personally liked the heavy use of scientific words, but overall it felt more like a writing exercise for the author, it didn't feel coherent as thirteen stories). One breath, one stroke (the only one for me where the Japanese imagery and folklore was too frequently obscure to enjoy reading it fluently). The emperor of tsukayama Park (lovely imagery, difficult for me to understand or relate to). Memoirs of a girl who failed to be born from a peach (it made be suitably uncomfortable, but I'm not sure I fully grasped the emotional importance of the work). 

No spoiler short review.

Emotionally, I believe this book deserves more than 3 stars. When I think about it in relation to my favourite books of all time though, the forced distribution pushes it to a 3/5. The story is narrated by death, which is quite poetic and not overhanded or gimmicky at all. Death provides a nice objective buffer between the reader and the storyline. The story follows the life of a young girl, named Liesel, living in Nazi Germany. The books does a good job at highlighting many things at once: the many tragic aspects of War, giref, guilt, hope, the stripping of identity (in many ways of many people), showing the day to day life of Germans who didn't agree with the Nazi party, the power of literacy and art, and showing acts of resistance (in many forms). The plot is not obscured; Death says "mystery bores me", so what compels you as the reader is discovering and investing in the characters rather than an unknown storyline. The chapters are short, and the prose although poetic is easy to read. A refreshingly honest fictional story about survival in Nazi Germany.