Out by Natsuo Kirino centers around four women who work the graveyard shift at a box lunch factory. One of these women, Yayoi, very early in the story reaches her breaking point and kills her cheating drunk of a husband who gambles away all their money.  What follows is the messy tale of how she ropes her friends into disposing of the body, and the ensuing fallout. 

On the surface, this sounds great. I was expecting something with strong bonds of friendship between the women (all of whom undoubtedly live tough lives) banding together to carve out something better for themselves.

My hopes quickly started to unravel as the relationship between the friends falls apart, while the plot became increasingly scatterbrained and unfocused. Kirino introduces a connection between Yayoi's husband and a former Yakuza member turned pimp/illegal gambling hall owner which ends up creating an endless amount of unnecessary offshoots to what should have been the main focus. This character also looms large at the end of the book (which was a confusing and anger-inducing mess).

This certainly wasn't the worst book I've read by a long shot. I was really hoping for things to wrap up in a satisfying way, but that's the gamble you take with a new-to-you author. I finished this with strong feelings that Kirino should have taken the basic premise, scrapped the rest and started over. As-is, this book was way too long and unfocused. There's definitely not enough here to make me want to pick up another book by Kirino.