In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Title: In the Miso Soup
Author: Ryu Murakami
Number of Pages: 180 pages
My Rating: 5/5

Twenty-year-old Kenji lives alone in Tokyo. His mom thinks he's enrolled in a cram school and trying to get into college, but he actually works as an unlicensed guide, showing foreigners around the Tokyo sex clubs. But Frank is like no customer Kenji's ever had before, and soon he's more worried about getting out of this three-day job alive than getting paid.

This is the first Ryu Murakami book I've ever read, though I've seen his stuff around a lot. After reading this I'm very interested in reading more. This book was fantastic. I managed to put it down fairly easily after the first part (it's divided into three parts), though I really enjoyed it, but I read parts two and three straight through, unable to put it down. It's a short book, but I don't have that long an attention span, so reading something in one or two sittings is pretty rare for me.

The translation was really good, too. I haven't read the Japanese to compare the content, of course, but it read really naturally in English. I wouldn't have thought it was a translation.

Mooch from BookMooch.

Comments

[sumofparts.livejournal.com]

This one sounds interesting; thanks for the rec.