she/her weirder.earth person, lover of bikes and trees
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As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence …
I loved the writing in this, absurd, rapid-fire, it magically captures the experience of scrolling a newsfeed - everything jumbled all together. And then shit gets real - but what is real?
Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is …
I enjoyed this but also... I struggled with the racist/transphobic/fatphobic character descriptions. The story is set decades in the future with some intriguingly huge global landmarks and norms shifted. And Tawada writes each character sympathetically, even lovingly, but I struggled with some of her descriptive choices. Those felt like deliberate provocation on the author's part.
So I'm left unsure. I did put another book of hers (The Emissary) on hold at the library, because I really enjoyed the writing (except for these glaring issues.) I'm curious whether its an authorial problem, or whether these were choices unique to this story.