What's Left of Me is Yours

 

My feelings about this book, like the messy relationships within the pages, are complicated. First, to briefly give you a synopsis: the story centers on the passionate romance that develops between Rina, a young Japanese wife and mother and the man, Kaitaro, a wakaresaseya, hired by her jerk husband to seduce her and give him grounds for and an advantage in divorce proceedings. (The fact that this is an actual, real occupation in Japan is bizarre in its own right, but I digress.) What follows is a hot mess of implications for Rina's daughter, her father, her husband, her lover, and most notably herself. It's also an eye-opening, if not kind of alarming look at the Japanese legal system. That's about as much as I can say without spoilers.

For a debut novel, Stephanie Scott has written an impressive piece of fiction that holds a lot of promise for a continued bright writing future. She's not one to rush through her story to get to the "good stuff", but takes her time to slow build each element of the story along the way, like an artist exploring all the colors patiently until the final image is complete. She paints her word pictures beautifully, and that I think is the biggest strength of this book. Whatever frustrations I had with the book were completely overridden by my desire to keep reading.

As for the storyline itself, while the author drops breadcrumbs to follow along the way, it's well into the final two parts of the book before you start getting answers to the major event of the story and what that means for all of the characters' futures. It's not really a mystery, yet the way it's written plays a lot like one. I could see fans of true crime, who are looking for a fictional narrative enjoying this, as long as they can handle the slow pace, and back and forth shifts in narrative focus.

Now for the reasons I gave this 4 1/2 stars, rather than 5. First of all, the slow pace I mentioned? At times I REALLY wanted things to move a bit faster. Call me impatient, lazy, whatever ... it's just that the premise really hooks you, then you have to wait ... a lot. It's a bit like walking up to door after door, opening them and starting to walk through, only to have the author shut the door in your face and say "not yet" over and over. The pay-off for that wait was worth it for me, but it was mildly frustrating. The other major issue for me is that the most compelling part of the story is the central relationship between Rina and Kaitaro, but I never felt like it got fleshed out in a way that quite did their love for each other justice. I wanted the bigger picture of it ... more details! I think it would have given more emotional impact to the events of the book, and all the other relationships Rina had, particularly with her daughter, Sumiko, and father, Yoshi. All the characters could have afforded a bit more fleshing out. It's easier to invest in characters the more you know about them, and I felt a little more detached from them than I hoped for.

All those things aside, this really is a beautiful book. Think of it as a slow simmering tea rather than a strong cup of coffee and I think you'll enjoy it.

★★★★ ½