A Six-Word Story

She never really wanted someone else.

Out by Natsuo Kirino

Out is my first book from Kirino Natsuo. It has been on my TBR list for quite some time and so I am glad I finally got to it.

I was initially hooked by the storyline in the first few pages/chapters of this book. There are four women who work on the night shift in a boxed lunch factory. One of them is abused by the husband and one day she found out that he used up all their savings in drinking, gambling and chasing a girl in a club. She ended up killing him. She then asked one of her co-workers to help her dispose the body and the story goes on.

I felt a bit bored after this initial action. I wasn’t sure where the story was going and it seemed like the author herself was confused where the story was heading. There were parts that I didn’t feel were relevant to the central plot. The last part of the book though brought back my initial excitement when I started reading it. I didn’t quite like the ending though. I thought it would’ve ended some other way but that’s okay.

It’s a strange book but that’s not new to me anymore when it comes to works of Japanese authors.

Quotable Quotes:

“She couldn’t live her life as someone’s prisoner the way he had lived his, caught up in a dream of the past, with no way forward and no way back, forced to dig down inside oneself.”

“When stones lying warm in the sun were turned over, they exposed the cold, damp earth underneath; and that was where Masako had burrowed deep. There was no trace of warmth in this dark earth, yet for a bug curled up tight in it, it was a peaceful and familiar world.”

Rating: 3.5 stars

 

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Don’t run from lessons; they are little packages of treasure that have been given to us. As we learn from them, our lives change for the better.

~Louise Hay