Reviews

A Separation by Katie Kitamura

camcc115's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I just wish she'd gone a little...deeper. The writing is great, and I would love to read her other books because the story of this one just really fell flat to me.

el_tuttle's review against another edition

2.0

To be clear, I read this because Kitamura keeps coming up under "readers also enjoyed" for people like Elif Batuman and Jennifer Egan, and Intimaces was checked out of the library. Kitamura is not reminiscent of those authors.

For a story about betrayal, deceit, guilt, and grief, the entire work was remarkably unevocative. I don't think I felt a single emotion the entire time (and I'm a big emotional baby who cries at pretty much all books).

Then of course there is the stylistic choice to drop quotation marks from dialogue. Why do authors do this? If you're going to make an annoying literary choice, at least tell a story with more substance. Neither the writing nor the narrative were compelling.

85tarheel's review against another edition

5.0

“It was a terrible thing, to love and not know whether you were loved in return, it led to the worst sensations—jealousy, rage, self-loathing—to all these lesser states.” The separation of this book’s title leads our narrator to many of the emotions listed and winds up being a book that falls into my loved genre of interior novels about a person instead of a plot driven book. If you need a lot going on or get claustrophobic being inside someone’s head for too long then this isn’t for you. I found it engrossing and I think the narrator as depicted rings very true. She is far from perfect (aren’t we all) but her journey is realistically presented. “Imagination, after all, costs nothing, it’s the living that is the harder part” and we see this play out for our protagonist. So much of these books depends on the skill in the writing and Ms. Kitamura clearly knows how to write prose. I never felt bored or like I needed things to pick up. It is quite witty, even including this bit of meta thinking “life rarely finds its exact likeness in a novel, that is hardly fiction’s purpose…” Yet this book seems to do just that. I really enjoyed her book “Intimacies” and this is another great read.

poorashleu's review

2.0

I was just...overly bored.

mybrilliantbasset's review against another edition

3.0

a true 3.5er — but unluckily for the author, i’m trying to be a tougher grader on GR

clementine__'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Che angoscia. Inquietante perché, pur svolgendosi la storia in un lasso di tempo molto breve, fatta eccezione del flashforward alla fine, è romanzo che sembra durare in eterno, questo non a causa di qualche difetto nel ritmo della narrazione, ma perché il lettore non lascia neanche per un momento la mente della protagonista, nella quale si sente rinchiuso. Per lo stesso motivo la definirei una lettura claustrofobica, una storia che si dipana attraverso i pensieri della protagonista, che fa congetture su congetture su ogni piccolo dettaglio, uno sguardo, la scelta di una determinata parola, un silenzio. È un romanzo a tratti così surreale, questo non solo per i personaggi e le situazioni anomale che lo popolano, ma per il tono così sospeso che assume, eppure così umano.
Bello, credo che non lo dimenticherò facilmente.

emilyinherhead's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It starts with an uncomfortable phone call from our narrator’s mother-in-law, who demands to know where her son is and why her daughter-in-law isn’t with him in the south of Greece. The sticky part is that unbeknownst to her mother-in-law and pretty much everyone else in her life, said narrator and her husband have been separated for some time. To avoid sharing this secret before she’s ready, she agrees to go looking for her estranged partner.

What follows is an introspective journey, both forward in time as the narrator tries to solve her ex’s disappearance, and backward as she digs deeper into what kind of person he was and what ultimately tore them apart.

The language is spare, the book fairly short, and the vibes dreamlike and sometimes unsettling. I’m not fully sure I got this book, but I definitely enjoyed the reading experience.

deannab415's review against another edition

3.0

Ok the first half was boring in terms of plot. But what I found amazing was the atmospheric writing/ Then, the second half picked up! I liked it over all. But not my absolute favorite.

isabelrstev's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense

4.0

joyyboyy's review against another edition

1.0

A lot of musing and not a lot of action. Pretty predictable. No conversational punctuation. Honestly all around disappointing and sad. The language in the first few chapters was enjoyable and then became more of a nuisance as the book went on.