Tag: Translated

Review: The Lucky Ride

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Title: The Lucky Ride
Author: Yasushi Kitagawa
Translator: Takami Nieda
Pages: 272
Release: October 7, 2025

What a lovely book.

The resident cynic in me was utterly charmed by this heartwarming tale of a down-on-his-luck insurance salesman who stumbles into a mysterious taxi that changes his life. Told as a parable, the story delivers a simple but moving message about living with positivity and generosity.

The “luck” the characters accumulate is the result of good deeds, but it functions more like karma than chance. Your choices add up, and their effects ripple outward, benefiting not only you but also future generations of your family. Good actions lead to good outcomes…eventually.

The Alchemist meets The Good Place: the messaging is straightforward, yet life-affirming and emotionally resonant. It won’t change your life, but it will put a smile on your face.

★★★★

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Sympathy Tower Tokyo

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Title: Sympathy Tower Tokyo
Author: Rie Qudan
Translator: Jesse Kirkwood
Pages: 208
Release: September 2, 2025

In near-future Japan, all criminals, now reclassified as Homo miserabilis, are considered victims of circumstance and are treated with extreme empathy. They are housed together in Sympathy Tower Tokyo, a hyper-egalitarian facility with conditions so humane that prisoners prefer to stay even when offered their freedom. The book follows Sara Machina, the tower’s architect, who grapples with the ethical consequences of her creation.

Qudan’s novel is surreal and conceptually fascinating, but ultimately left me cold. Its unclear structure and indistinct points of view make the narrative feel scattered and emotionally distant. For a story so rooted in the idea of empathy, it’s curiously devoid of warmth – an effect that may be intentional, but left me feeling hollow by the end.

Qudan’s meditation on the evolution of the Japanese language is compelling, particularly the universal idea that “words determine our reality,” a theme that threads itself throughout the book. Still, whether due to Jesse Kirkwood’s translation or the source text itself, Sympathy Tower Tokyo never quite connected for me.

Note: in keeping with the source material – roughly 5% of this review was generated with AI.

★★★

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley & Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Chilco

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“The landscape we live in is falling apart; what we once loved is vanishing. Tomorrow seems to us an obsolete discourse, a privilege of past decades”

Title: Chilco
Author: Daniela Catrileo
Translator: Jacob Edelstein
Pages: 272
Release: July 15, 2025

An evocative meditation on colonialism, dispossession, and identity. Chilco unfolds in a city literally falling apart, while Mari’s collapse is more internal – she is caught between cultures, histories, and her own fractured sense of belonging. She grapples with the tension between rootedness and displacement, both within herself and those close to her. What is worth clinging to, and what can be left behind?

Catrileo’s writing is tender and quite lovely – more a breeze than a gale force wind. Subtle yet deeply moving.  The book’s nonlinear structure feels unnecessary, but it did not diminish the power of its themes. 

Before reading this, I knew little of Chilean history or the oral tradition of the Mapuche people. Chilco served as a compelling introduction, sparking my interest for further exploration.

★★★¾

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Dengue Boy

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Title: Dengue Boy
Author: Michel Nieva
Translator: Rahul Bery
Pages: 224
Release: February 4, 2025

An economy propped up by pandemic speculation. Capitalism built on climate destruction. And a giant mosquito boy with poor impulse control. This gross, engrossing, and absurd phantasmagoria is a feast for the senses. While the plot feels a bit thin, the absurdity and off-the-wall weirdness kept me intrigued. I enjoyed my time here, but Dengue Boy won’t be for everyone.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost

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“He can reflect all he wants but will not be able to pilot that flash of inspiration into the harbor of his memory. It has gone adrift and shimmers on the horizon of his imagination.”

Title: Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost
Author: Donald Niedekker
Translator: Jonathan Reeder
Pages: 196
Release: May 20, 2025

Based on the true story of Dutch explorers seeking the Northeast Passage, only to be thwarted by the weather, the expedition finds itself marooned in the Arctic. They wisely repurpose their ship into a livable abode to withstand the brutal elements. Our unnamed narrator does not survive the ordeal, but his newly unthawed corpse has enough wherewithal to recount his tale after 400 years on ice. While the story’s premise is rooted in the realities of climate change and our warming planet, it doesn’t dwell on this theme beyond a few subtle mentions. 

Such an odd and fascinating premise gives way to a richly imagined, beautifully translated, and appropriately wry tale. The narrator’s scattershot musings touch on life–his own and otherwise–his career as a poet, why he prefers rivers to seas, the geese’s annual migration overhead his icy grave, the state of exploration in the 16th century, and plenty more. There’s no sensible order or structure to his thoughts as he hops around, eventually admitting that he’s providing a “less-than-coherent narrative.” Agree! 

★★★★

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Vanishing World

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Title: Vanishing World
Author: Sayaka Murata
Translator: Ginny Tapley Takemori
Pages: 240
Release: April 15, 2025

An off-kilter and unsettling page-turner, Vanishing World tackles declining birth rates, widespread loneliness, social isolation, and the rise of unhealthy parasocial relationships – issues that feel even more relevant today than when this book was first published in Japan in 2015.

In a world where copulation has gone out of style, Amane longs for the days of old. Yet she quickly learns how difficult it is to swim against the current of established societal norms, no matter how bizarre they may be. Everyone around her feels slightly unhinged, as though facsimiles of real people, adding to Amane’s feelings of isolation. 

This was a tough one to put down and it certainly goes out with a bang. Murata’s dry, matter-of-fact prose is engrossing, even as she hammers home certain ideas and themes to the point of excess. 

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Under the Eye of the Big Bird

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Title: Under the Eye of the Big Bird
Author: Hiromi Kawakami
Translator: Asa Yoneda
Pages: 282
Release: September 3, 2024

An imaginative and disquieting take on the future of humanity. An entrancing read.

This was a fascinating read. In a world where humanity is nearing extinction, humans reform into small societies across the globe in a bid to survive, while mysterious and potentially malevolent forces guide them.

The timeline is purposely vague and disorienting, with hundreds or thousands of years passing from one chapter to the next. The aim is to see the broader strokes of the survival effort, but it kept me from fully connecting with any single character or society. 

While the pieces never fully clicked into place for me, I enjoyed the entire ride. Kawakami’s writing (via Asa Yoneda’s translation) is quite moving as it conveys a subtle beauty to the remade world. Fans of Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark will surely find familiarity in form and function here.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Thirst

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Title: Thirst
Author: Marina Yuszczuk
Translator: Heather Cleary
Pages: 256
Release: March 5, 2024

An evocative read that is ultimately unsatisfying in its execution. 

The prose is quite pretty, especially in Part I, which vividly depicts the tumultuous life of a 19th-century vampire lusting for blood and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. However, Part II fails to deliver a satisfying conclusion, abruptly jumping to the present day and losing the momentum of the first half. The writing here feels stilted and uninspiring, lacking the sorrowful beauty of the first half. 

The integration of the two plotlines is awkward, and the plot sometimes reads like a series of disjointed events rather than a cohesive narrative. While vampire enthusiasts will have plenty to sink their teeth into here, this book fell short for me.

★★½

My thanks to the public library for providing me with a post-release copy in exchange for a promise that I’ll return it within 14 days. (I did).

Review: Vita Nostra

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VitaNostra_HC.jpgTitle: Vita Nostra (November 13, 2018)
Authors: Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
Translator: Julia Meitov Hersey
Pages: 416

Vita Nostra follows the plight of Sasha Samokhina, a Russian teenager who is enrolled at a mysterious college where she undergoes major transformations as she navigates social politics, her unique nature, and a bizarre cadre of peculiar professors.

When I read Harry Potter for the first time, I dreamt about how wondrous and wonderful it would be if a place like Hogwarts existed. The school featured in Vita Nostra elicited the opposite feeling and I hope I never come across such a twisted place. It seemed as though a storm cloud drifted over my head every time I opened this book and it felt like I was reading with gray tinted glasses. The dread and foreboding are palpable.

Have you ever had the nightmare where you show up to a final exam and you forgot to study? Or you forgot you had an exam in the first place and you miss it altogether? This book is like that nightmare on acid. It touches on many anxieties that I had packed away and left in high school. It’s odd and unnerving and it really dug itself into my brain in ways that books don’t normally do.

The plot is evasive by design and we know as little about what’s going on as Sasha does at the start. Sasha eventually finds clarity, but things felt just as murky to me. This was a frustrating read, but there’s something to be said about an author being able to evoke an emotional reaction for a reader. I may not have enjoyed Vita Nostra, but I certainly respect its uniqueness and the tone it sets and maintains throughout.

★★★ out of 5

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.