Will need time to properly write my thoughts out for this, but one thing's for sure, this is effed up as it is depressing and melancholic.

My brain literally in shambles after reading this. Definitely impactful and I'll be thinking about this book... for a very very very long time.

Personal Ratings : 4.5🌟

Vile. Shocking. Just ... wow.

An interconnecting stories, told from different characters interwoven with one another.

Writing----> Amazing, just love how she wrote everything here. The scenery, the feels, the musings of each character, and the interconnection of each character in here.

Characters ----> The fact that they're so messed up and yet you still feel sorry for them . The most sorry I had for was for Takumi and I hated the adults had ruined everything for him, and the fact he's still so very young, just shows the effects of underage exposure to indecent intercourse.

Themes

Sexuality
The overall theme of this book consists of the topics of sexuality, how taboo it is, and how vile the darkest parts that humans can go.

An older woman having cosplay sex with an underage boy?
A genius who got into a sex cult?
A pedophilia who wants to teach but has urges?

This book for me really showed how indecent exposure to sex can often come more harmful than not, especially if you're exposing it to children that are younger than you. Whats sad about this book is that, every single character has their own baggage they had to carry and its the product of society that led them to have a life as that.

This book really really really boggled my mind as to how vile and disgusting these acts are and that they exist in the real world. The fact that it's more common makes it scarier. Being that the idea of love and lust was distorted to a point that it will mess you up as a person, and lowkey, as a reader, it really leaves you unsettled after reading this.

The author had done a splendid job in exploring this theme and the fact it can make you very uncomfortable showed how wrong the acts are morally but once going into the psyche of the person, you can't help feel sorry for them. Its messed up. Really. And I hate that the actions of a person affects a young person's mental-state-of-mind to a point it will make them unable to live their lives as a normal person.

Womenhood
Another main theme that the author highlighted are on womenhood, and highlights more in fertilization and how society views a woman's role in marriage. From Satomi's pressure from her mother-in-law to have children, to the number of tryouts that she had to try, to the constant criticism in her inability to have children, and also we get a glimpse of the world of childbirth and how women had to limit their options to a point that they feel the need to have a "normal" birth as to deem to become a good mother.

As we get a POV of midwife in charge of giving birth, I feel that the author did a splendid job in bringing this topic to life. In the hardships of women being objectified, they also don't have their own say for their bodies, up to the obsession of society to have normal births just to deem you as a succesful mother. I felt so much whilst reading this and truly, most women STILL STRUGGLES with this belief all over the world. The pressure from families, in laws, your marriage and also society viewing you for your purpose rather than you as a person.

How The Internet can Ruin A Person's Life
Its scary how something so far fetched can really ruin someone's life. While this theme is somewhat subtle, I feel that the author had done a wonderful job in showing how the web and its mass connection had been able to help to connect dots on certain things, but, when used wrongly, it can lead to disturbing places that will ruin a person's livelihood.

The author was really smart in showing how humans are somewhat interwoven in a tight net that leads us to be in the know, even with the things that we didn't want to know.

This part was so effed up to me, to a point that it just blew my mind.

There are other themes such as bullying, after-effects of bullying and some topics that I feel that it will be draining for me to elaborate on. However, this book does show the affects of either being too exposed to something that can come more harm than it doesn't. The writing reminds me a lot of Murata's writing in Convenience Store Woman, where the characters are odd and often deemed as 'weird' in society. Whilst this book's theme carries a heavier theme, being that the very act that the characters did can literally put them in jail, its also a reflection of life and our society now; in which the need to feel wanted and loved to a point they find it in places they aren't supposed too.

The melancholy in the passages and the musings of life in each character has led me to believe Kubo is an amazing author and Polly Barton translated this wonderfully. Definitely a masterpiece and whilst it fucked me in the head so bad, its also a read that I will remember for very long time.