The Steady Read

Your home for book reviews, recommendations, and more

Category: Book Reviews

  • Review: Patriotism by Mishima Yukio

    Review: Patriotism by Mishima Yukio

    Perhaps one of the most tense and disturbing short stories I have ever read, leaving me unsure whether to praise it or regret having ever read it. The story itself follows the suicide of a young Japanese lieutenant, and his even younger wife, at the tail end of February 1936. The premise sounds simple and…

  • Review: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

    Review: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

    A novel with an attitude, or that’s how it comes across to most readers. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is widely recognised as a novel that wants to pick apart the superficiality of twentieth century society, but I feel that undermines its appeal. Societal critique is a common facet of many novels, so that’s…

  • Review: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Review: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Adichie is an author I have a great admiration for, yet I always take an incredible amount of time to get through each of her works. Her talent and slow narratives daunt and bore me at first, but I always come away wishing I had really engaged with the novel and digested it more consistently….

  • Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

    Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

    A novella that many people like to reference, Animal Farm is a suitable criticism of capitalism, greed, and the nature of how we humans — or perhaps any being — inevitably take advantage of the power afforded to us. Whilst not as deep or as clever as some claim it to be, Orwell’s relatively compact…

  • Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    The last in Mieko Kawakami’s main trio of works — All the Lovers in the Night evokes much of the same emotions and motifs found within her acclaimed debut Breast and Eggs, whilst also successfully mixing in the emotional messiness of her much shorter work Heaven. The story follows Fuyoko Irie, a freelance proofreader who…

  • Review: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

    Review: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

    An excellent display of all of Murakami’s talents, bundled nicely into a much shorter package than that of his hit novel Norwegian Wood. South of the Border, West of the Sun follows Hajime, a flawed but very honest portrayal of a man who has had plenty of luck and success across his life, yet is…

  • Review: Behind the Prison by Kafū Nagai

    Review: Behind the Prison by Kafū Nagai

    A short story about a Japanese man, one who descended from a very well-off lineage, finding himself quite at odds once he returns home to his family’s large estate in Tokyo. Unsure of how to deal with his emotions and thoughts about the current state of Japan, he writes a lengthy letter to his Excellency….

  • Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    You may notice my reoccurring fondness for Japanese fiction, and novel like Convenience Store Woman are exactly why this is the case. Despite being a funny, not-too-serious story about an oddball woman who has dedicated herself to working part-time at a convenience store since she was eighteen, Murata is surprisingly talented at tackling a lot…

  • Review: Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

    Review: Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

    A short, riveting tale of a mystery that involves what seems to be nothing more than a tragic lover’s suicide quickly becomes quite an entrancing step-by-step deduction to the true motive behind two cyanide-filled corpses – a government worker and a waitress – turning up on a secluded beach in Hakata, Japan. Despite not expecting…

  • Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    A tender, strange, and relatively short novella that explores love, age, and weirdness that forms our many life-long relationships. Following the lonesome and somewhat gloomy Tsukiko in her thirties, Strange Weather in Tokyo focuses on her deepening, almost-taboo and socially unacceptable relationship with the elderly Mr Matsumoto — nicknamed ‘Sensei’ — who taught her Japanese…