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khakipantsofsex's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Suicide
Moderate: Child death, Homophobia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Stalking
Minor: Child abuse
millibear's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Definitely a read where I was glad to have content warnings beforehand.
The voice in translation felt like it was constantly at a remove from the contents of the book, which took me some getting used to. Now that I've read the book, though, the distance makes sense for the main character Norie and the way she kept what happened to her at arm's length.
Was glad to read queer fiction from a queer Taiwanese-Japanese writer!
The voice in translation felt like it was constantly at a remove from the contents of the book, which took me some getting used to. Now that I've read the book, though, the distance makes sense for the main character Norie and the way she kept what happened to her at arm's length.
Was glad to read queer fiction from a queer Taiwanese-Japanese writer!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Self harm and Stalking
lizzie_r's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Medical content
Minor: Misogyny, Self harm, and Stalking
justinlewry's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
While I was bound by my memories of the incident, the world kept on turning, time kept on flowing. The world has moved on, and I’m the only one standing still.
Solo Dance is a queer Taiwanese-Japanese novel about a woman ostracised from the world, and the lengths she goes to recover following a terrible incident.
Solo Dance is a painful and personal story of resilience in a society not willing to embrace identity.
Once I really dig into this novel, I found it impossible to put down, and eagerly read the final 200 pages in a single sitting, hungry for more.
Kotomi’s story is as vital and universal. Whilst often mired in despair, there is always a glimmer of hope throughout. The story interweaves between these complex states of mind with grace. I really loved this story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia
rosenkavalier's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, and Sexual harassment
clara_mai's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
"It was strange how writing about death had allowed her to keep living."
Written in the most lyrical but precise style, this novel tells the story of a young lesbian woman from Taiwan who migrates to Japan after an event that leaves her heavily traumatized. She wants to leave everything behind, but eventually has to face her past, which brings her closer to death than she ever was.
A major theme of this novel is the relation of pain and death to art. The narrative refers to the Taiwanese author Qiu Miaojin, who wrote the essential lesbian classic Notes of a Crocodile and stabbed herself shortly after completing her second novel Last Words from Montmartre. The protagonist of Solo Dance and her girlfriend in school relate Qiu Miaojin to the legend of the Thorn Bird (the one that is depicted on the cover), a story about a bird that spends its life in silence, searching for a thorn bush, only to take its own life by flying towards the sharpest thorn while singing a beautiful song. Both Qiu Miaojins work and life resonate with the protagonist, who has dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts from a young age and finds that expressing her pain in writing (like Miaojin: "Qiu transformed the pain of her existance into art") helps her to live (see quote at the top). In this way, the novel simultaneously shows art as an essence of death and life.
While Solo Dance bears a lot of parallels to Qiu Miaojins Notes of a Crocodile, one difference is its clear focus on the aftermath of a traumatic experience.The protagonist is raped by a man who hates lesbians and in some way aims to "correct them" and this "incident", as she mostly refers to it, eventually leads to her moving to Japan, where she doesn't tell anyone about it. While she immerses herself in the queer community in Tokyo, she hides this part of her identity at work and continues to carry some internalised homophobia, as she blames her queerness for the violence that was done to her and how it affected her relationships. The author doesn't shy away from exploring all the difficult and dark parts of the experience she describes (I think it might also be autofictional to some degree), but does this with a lot of care and empathy. At the same time, there is a focus on hope and human connection (specifically in the context of queer communities) throughout the novel, which is so important.
Additionally, Solo Dance conveys a nuanced picture of both Taiwanese and Japanese contemporary society and was quite interesting to me in that regard. The role that names and the absence of them (the protagonist is only ever referred to as "she" by the narrative voice) was fascinating as well.
The narration is extremely well crafted. Through the chapters that alternate between the protagonists current life and mental state and her youth in Taiwan, it slowly reveals more of her past and therefore shows the history of her obsession with death and how she became the person she is in the present. While most of the book is told in third person, a part of it consists of a diary (this also reminded me of the notebook format of Notes of a Crocodile) that chronicles the time between the assault and her move to Japan. This diary provides a very direct and intimate account of her feelings and inner conflicts. As previously mentioned the writing is beautiful. It is kept in rather short sentences that feel very impactful, raw and often times lyrical. The translator, Arthur Reiji Morris, did a fantastic job here.
Overall, this was an emotional and personal reading experience for me, as the story and protagonist as well as the themes felt very close to me. I didn't know much about Solo Dance before I picked it up, so it hit me even harder when it resonated so much with me. I wasn't aware that it would be directly referencing Qiu Miaojin and her work, but as soon as I got to the chapter where she is first mentioned, I knew it was over for me (in a good way). Actually there are many more writers and texts mentioned throughout the novel and I wrote all of them down, so I will be able to go further down this rabbit hole of East Asian literature that deals with queerness and death. I was thinking about comparable works, and I would recommend this to everyone who loved Notes of a Crocodile (obviously) and/or The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Oh, and this is my favourite book of the year.
Written in the most lyrical but precise style, this novel tells the story of a young lesbian woman from Taiwan who migrates to Japan after an event that leaves her heavily traumatized. She wants to leave everything behind, but eventually has to face her past, which brings her closer to death than she ever was.
A major theme of this novel is the relation of pain and death to art. The narrative refers to the Taiwanese author Qiu Miaojin, who wrote the essential lesbian classic Notes of a Crocodile and stabbed herself shortly after completing her second novel Last Words from Montmartre. The protagonist of Solo Dance and her girlfriend in school relate Qiu Miaojin to the legend of the Thorn Bird (the one that is depicted on the cover), a story about a bird that spends its life in silence, searching for a thorn bush, only to take its own life by flying towards the sharpest thorn while singing a beautiful song. Both Qiu Miaojins work and life resonate with the protagonist, who has dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts from a young age and finds that expressing her pain in writing (like Miaojin: "Qiu transformed the pain of her existance into art") helps her to live (see quote at the top). In this way, the novel simultaneously shows art as an essence of death and life.
While Solo Dance bears a lot of parallels to Qiu Miaojins Notes of a Crocodile, one difference is its clear focus on the aftermath of a traumatic experience.
Additionally, Solo Dance conveys a nuanced picture of both Taiwanese and Japanese contemporary society and was quite interesting to me in that regard. The role that names and the absence of them (the protagonist is only ever referred to as "she" by the narrative voice) was fascinating as well.
The narration is extremely well crafted. Through the chapters that alternate between the protagonists current life and mental state and her youth in Taiwan, it slowly reveals more of her past and therefore shows the history of her obsession with death and how she became the person she is in the present. While most of the book is told in third person, a part of it consists of a diary (this also reminded me of the notebook format of Notes of a Crocodile) that chronicles the time between the assault and her move to Japan. This diary provides a very direct and intimate account of her feelings and inner conflicts. As previously mentioned the writing is beautiful. It is kept in rather short sentences that feel very impactful, raw and often times lyrical. The translator, Arthur Reiji Morris, did a fantastic job here.
Overall, this was an emotional and personal reading experience for me, as the story and protagonist as well as the themes felt very close to me. I didn't know much about Solo Dance before I picked it up, so it hit me even harder when it resonated so much with me. I wasn't aware that it would be directly referencing Qiu Miaojin and her work, but as soon as I got to the chapter where she is first mentioned, I knew it was over for me (in a good way). Actually there are many more writers and texts mentioned throughout the novel and I wrote all of them down, so I will be able to go further down this rabbit hole of East Asian literature that deals with queerness and death. I was thinking about comparable works, and I would recommend this to everyone who loved Notes of a Crocodile (obviously) and/or The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Oh, and this is my favourite book of the year.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Bullying, Self harm, Suicide, Grief, Stalking, and Outing
ollie_again's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
The world is full of contradictions. And she was no exception. There was peace in the darkness, but within it lurked nightmares, too.
I enjoyed my time with this book. It's not a happy book by any stretch of the imagination, nor it is an action-packed, thrilling read. It is a sad, introspective story about a woman, her experience as a lesbian in the 'queer desert' of Japan, and her dealing with the trauma of being raped for being a lesbian in her homeland Taiwan. There are two main timelines interwoven: Norie's past told in the first person, snippets of her childhood and growing up in Taiwan, and then her contemporary life in Japan told in the third person. And on top of it her neverending and evergrowing fascination with death, suicide, and her lack of want to keep on living.
The main thing that I really loved in this book is the main character's appreciation of other literary works from East Asia and how thoughtfully were they chosen and inserted into the narrative. It didn't feel like a reference-dumping but as a true interest of Norie. Overall, the language in the book is poetic and even though it deals with hard topics, it flows beautifully. There was no place where I felt stuck or felt that I don't want to keep reading.
My only issue is with the ending that somehow didn't affect me in any way. I don't mind open endings or unsatisfying endings when they are the intention of the author, but usually, I get some type of feelings about the endings, here the book just ended on a weird-ish note and I didn't know what to think or feel about it.
Overall though, I liked this book enough, and for people who enjoy reading reflective books that are mainly about things happening in the character's head, dissecting their thoughts and feelings (especially concerning death), this might be for you. I had similar feelings while reading as I had with A Tale for the Time Being or Convenience Store Woman If you enjoyed those two, you want to pick this one up.
Thank you to World Editions and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Rape, and Outing
Minor: Self harm and Stalking
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