The case itself really was intriguing. I like the idea to solve a cold dead long forgotten cased. With this case we were shown how passionate, determined, dedicated and committed Cormoran and Robin were.
I also love the character development. Even some small characters like Pat, the new agency’s secretary, got a deep sense of it. Also some occurring characters like Shanker, Barkley (oh, I looove Barkley so much!), Lucy, Charlotte, Matthew (ewh), also Nick and Ilsa were dug deeper here. But the good thing is, we don’t get dragged too long. We can easily learn more about these characters by reading their conversation.
Also, if you’re a shipper for Cormoran and Robin’s relationship, this book feels like a drop of water we waited for so long. It’s clearly see how they developed their feelings toward each other. Their fight after the dinner at Max’s (Robin’s new landlord) place really open a lot of possibility to their relationship. Which I can’t wait to know more about it!
Talking about dragging, with 900+ pages, somehow I don’t feel bored reading this. Sometimes there are some parts that they all focused on other cases, but still, it’s engaging somehow. I think it’s because the dynamic from Cormoran and Robin is getting more and more interesting. I keep giggling reading them, like reading a teen lit. Some experiences that you seldom got from a detective stories, right?
I read the blinkist version of it first and really interested in knowing about it more. I love sushi so much, so I think I should read more this book where we can learn about Sushi through and through. I’ve learned in detail how to cut fish and makes it as sashimi, choose good fish according to the season where they reach their prime condition, how Nori (seaweed) and wasabi agriculture looked like, even how to eat sushi and behave at the sushi bar.
The thing is, I don’t really get the idea why the author needs to make it as a story based with some characters in it. I know that maybe he wanted to make it more approachable and easy to understand. But sometimes I found it dragging too far from the reason I read this book for.
Basically, reading this book feels like you read a story about a woman, named Katie, who needs new purpose in her life. Inspired by a comic book where the woman lead character was a sushi chef, she decided to learn how to be one and enroll to one of the oldest sushi chef school in California, US. So, in every chapter of this book, we learn all about the sushi, how to make it, the history of it, or type of fishes, during each of of Katie’s class. It’s well written actually, with a bunch of new information for us who want to learn deeper about sushi we love. But, I don’t think I need to know Katie’s personal struggle. Her struggle to catch up with her classmate in sushi class, though, was interesting and gave us how difficult it is to become a sushi chef. I think, that additional personal issues are the one that kept me from finishing this book quick and took about 1 year to finally continue reading this from where I left of.
The first time I read this I have a mix feeling with Jack Brigance. His narcissisms and some rude attitude toward his (ex-boss) secretary sometimes irritated me. But I also love his bright and bold move. The way he wanted to be a street lawyer and pure 100% of his energy to help those people in needs really move me. Well, at least that’s what I got from this first installation of Jack Brigance series from John Grisham.
This book focus more on the events before the biggest trial in Clanton happened. Racism became the main plot and with 80s background, we really can feel how tensed it was. Growing up as 90s kid, where we can befriend with everyone, I really couldn’t imagine how people could think as low as what this book depicted. Well, sadly, maybe it’s still happening right now in any kind of form.
As usual, John Grisham successfully telling us a character based story without bore us with unimportant details (Yes, I’m still traumatized after reading Anna Karenina). Grisham usually only need to mention side characters with only 3-4 paragraphs and we can fully understand who they really are. Funny thing is that the trial part only took about 2-3 chapters in total, but still I felt so nervous about it. I remember I need to stop couple of time to just took some breath waiting the jury decision. I think the premise that is built with since very beginning really gave us the story a great foundation.
John Grisham always be my go-to author when I don’t know what else to read or too bored reading some of those “serious” books. Or in my case this time, being too traumatized after reading that boring Anna Karenina. If there’s such this as comfort author, Grisham is definitely one for me.
I read some Murakami’s book and I love them all. Especially for this book, it’s my personal favorite by far. Maybe because it appears to be such a personal story for me.
I’m a single child myself. Somehow I could totally relate with the description that Murakami wrote here, about the thoughts and feelings that a single child would have. I could feel the love, the confusion, the pain. I can understand the thought, the feeling and all the bothering questions. The feeling left behind after I finished reading this book was just similar with the feeling I had after watching Falsettos. There’s a void, a sadness that eats me up from inside, the weird satisfaction after having such spiritual event, and the feeling that lingers after experiencing a state of the art.
The story itself is actually very simple. But somehow it resonated so much to myself. I think because it’s so simple it feels right and real. It has all Murakami’s formula. So if you’re already used to how he describes everything in a beautiful detail, this book won’t bore you.
I’ll throw some of my fav quotes from this book. Either because it’s beautifully written or have some personal impact to my personal thoughts.
“…..the sad truth is that certain types of things can’t go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can’t go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that’s how it will stay forever.”
Bitter truth, but still, we need a reminder of it
“some feelings cause us pain because they remain.”
Another bitter truth that needs to be reminded of.
“For a while” is a phrase whose length can’t be measured. At least by the person who’s waiting…and “Probably” is a word whose weight is incalculable”
For someone whom left hanging, these 2 words really resonates the struggle of Hajime
“I always feel as if I’m struggling to become someone else. As if I’m trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I suppose it’s part of growing up, yet it’s also an attempt to re-invent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself – as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What’s missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I’m still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as I’ll come to defining myself.”
This quote really strikes right through my heart. I felt like Hajime is the exactly the same type of single child like me.
I was no longer alone, yet at the same time I felt a deep loneliness I’d never known before
Again. Somewhat relate.
“Being stuck in the same environment, you grow dull and lethargic. Your energy level takes a nosedive. Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.”
I love this quote so much. It’s a beautiful metaphor for a reminder to us to keep polishing our dream, even when we already live it up.
Yes, it won’t be a book review. But it’ll be more to my nagging about how struggle I was reading this book. So, it will contain some spoilers. For those of you who still want to read this, better close this post right away (and read my other post instead. No, don’t close my blog. lol!)
I think this is one of that book which makes you either really love it or hate it. For me, unfortunately, it’s the latter.
I never felt so struggle reading a classic, or any books, as much as I struggle reading Anna Karenina. I mean, how can you help yourself to not drifting away reading it while the author himself keeps drifting away from the main story? I’m so sorry if there’s anyone of you who’s Tolstoy’s fans. It’s just not my cup of tea.
I got it that considering it was published on 1878 when there weren’t much entertainment, people tend to read to kill their time. Maybe they prefer to read something complicated, something with many characters to be explored deeply. But i think it was too deep i think this book need to change the title to be Levin instead. Haha!
This book is divided into 8 parts. Most of the parts were focus on Anna’s acquittances or families. Or even further, we were getting even closer to Levin, bestfriend of Anna’s brother and getting attached more to his story. Even the first part barely talked about Anna and more to Stiva (the brother) and Levin with their own problems. I thought, “Oh, maybe it’s that kind of story that the main characters will be appeared slightly as a teaser in the beginning. So we can get a hint or a grip of what Anna would be on the next part. They’ll talk about Anna more after this.” I was wrong.
When I said the title needs to be changed to be Levin instead, I meant it. I grew quite attached to his characters tho I actually despise that kind of characters. Jealous and rather stubborn. He’s such a person who has a unique way of thinking. I can say that out of 8 parts, more than half of it was making too much focus on Levin’s life instead of Anna.
I instead grew to hate Anna’s character. (Spoiler alert). In the beginning I felt quite pity towards her. Trying to chase the love of her life and being so vulnerable after leaving everything behind including her only son. But, when she grew being possessive, blinded by nonsense jealous, paranoid about her lover imagined infidelity, fearing her own loss of control, I just wanted to snap her “Girl, it’s your effin’ choice! be adult about it!”. She was so selfish I couldn’t stand about it. Even when she’s dead, I didn’t give too much damn.
To be honest, for the last 30% of the book (that’s about 300+ pages out of 1000ish pages), I skimmed read it. I practically read the page vertically and read only words I only caught. Surprisingly, I still got the plot correctly understood. It’s like proving that the book contained too much unnecessary details that makes it dragging too long. Actually, there are some other topics such as an evaluation of the feudal system that existed in Russia at the time. Not only in the Russian government but also at the level of the individual characters and families, religion, morality, gender and social class. Unfortunately, this topics were just felt like a complimentary.
Don’t get me wrong, not everything in it is bad. Well, I’ve found my fav part in this book. This one single page really describes truthfully what a marriage life could turn out to be. Also, don’t forget that strong opening sentence “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
The only part of this book that made me nod in agreement
Primadisya's Locus Pocus 