Out – Natsuo Kirino

Information

• Goodreads: 3.95 out of 40,826 Ratings
• Age Category: Adult
• Genre: Thriller
• Series: None

Summary

An exhausted and drained mother who works the night shift strangles her deadbeat husband after he leaves a huge bruise across her stomach. With nothing left to do but try and get away with it, she goes to her coworkers for help. The audience then gets a peek into the Yakuza, the psychology of committing these crimes to escape their shitty lives, and how the detectives and determined amateurs toy around with one another.

Review

I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I’m going to talk about what I hated first, because it was only the ending of the book. I’m sure it had something to say, but I still feel it could have been done differently. The ending chapters have two-three (depending on how you look at it) rape scenes. One is a man reflecting on a past rape + murder he committed and how he has glamorized it in his head. That part I don’t mind. This is a thriller and he’s sadistic. Checks out. However, there is one other instance of rape. It is actively happening on page from the man’s perspective. It’s gross. But then, the scene happens all over again, but we’re in the woman’s perspective this time. And this was an intriguing portion – she talks about hating her body and the man because her body is responding to him. It’s a completely normal thing that a lot of women have conflicting emotions about because it feels like a betrayal and is an excuse men use – “Clearly she was enjoying it.” What I absolutely hated is how we see her grow to care about the man raping her and even tries to save his life. And then, for a small moment, wants to continue to live for him. No. Fuck that, it’s fucking gross. It is entirely possible that I’m missing something here, but I cannot and will not reread to see what it was.

Everything else was phenomenal. This is a slow burn mystery/thriller. Yayoi has killed her husband and desperately needs her coworkers help. I thought that would be the book, but there’s more. We get to see how this act deeply impacts each person. Yayoi, desperate for intimacy and friendship, becomes overly trusting and naive. She begins to see her part of the crime as less than because she’s consistently comparing her coworkers’ disposal method to her own crime. Kuniko becomes greed itself. She is driven by money and never learns her lesson. She tries to manipulate everyone around her, but is also kind of bad at it with everyone but overly trusting Yayoi and will not hesitate to sell the women out if it benefits her. Yoshi becomes stronger is some places but continues to be weak in others. She’s fragile, but able to take power where and when its available. Then, there is Masiko. Our main character, the heart of the story, the glue that holds everyone together – even if she is unraveling herself. She has a mysterious past that everyone is interested in and she’s stern and tough.

Through our characters, we get to see what it can look like for greed, paranoia, and general disdain to tear a group of women apart from the inside out. That’s really all this book is to me and I loved it. It’s a character study on how such extreme conditions can lead to people committing acts they would have never thought themselves capable of. A mother who works the nightshift taking on an extra job of dismembering corpses because she’s desperate for money? Color me intrigued. However, the slow burn character study could often be difficult to continue to read because this is a longer book and it just took so long. The ending felt like it was just going off the rails, particularly with the showdown/rape scene. It had so much going for it and so many conversations that I was genuinely interested in, but the ending just lost me.

What did you think of the book? Let me know!