Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

Both of the Novellas are quick reads. The first one is a about a couple spending four days in a love hotel on the eve of the Iraq War. They know they will just have these four days and together and will never see each other again. The prose switches viewpoints and rambles just like conversation in between having sex. I enjoyed the ending. The second story takes place during one day as a wife reflects on her life and marriage. I did not enjoy this story as much as since I did not care for the wife. Both stories concern solitude and isolation. I liked the first story better than the second one. The writing is very good and the author has a gift for language. Enjoy

I feel like grouping this short novel with another short novel from Japan that came out at the same time (Convenience Store Woman)- and I do wonder, is this a trend? If so, more please!

It is the eve of the Iraq War and two characters end up spending almost a week together in a love hotel, but there are encounters with other people on both sides of that story. The author shifts from one perspective to another, and this fills in the story in a lot of ways, and I enjoyed the different versions and unexpressed thoughts, especially in a culture like Japan.

The encounters are short, the long-term is not explored, but I enjoyed this quick read.

I love discovering new to me authors and I was glad when I read this very well written and well told story. I love discovering a new author's voice and this author did not disappoint. I was engrossed and entertained by both stories so this should definitely be picked up and savored. Looking forward to reading more by this author. Happy reading!

I struggled to get through this book. It leaves the reader feeling empty at the end of the two novellas. Perhaps the author would be better suited to writing plays instead of novels. As much noise as was crammed into these two stories, there was a lot missing. I won't pick up anything by this author again, and I would not recommend this read.

<p>A pair of two Japanese novellas about, well, I guess about not being engaged in life, and having spiraled inwards, even when making connections to others. The first, a just-met pair stay at a love hotel for five days, then separate. The second, a wife lays in bed in her mouldy apartment, reading blogs online and thinking about her husband. The first novella takes place during Bush II years and it was like "Oh yeah, Bush. Lot's of bad stuff happened then." I'd forgotten about all that in the waves and waves of all the new bad stuff that's happened in the meantime. The second is more unmoored in time, even within the story which sort of floats around the way my thoughts float around when I, too, can't be bothered to put the effort in to get out of bed. Or like now, when it's humid and I'm sleepy and I feel as detached from life as the characters I read about in <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/21526074/book/157650696">The End of the Moment We Had</a>.</p>

<p>It's a very disorienting feeling after having read these stories; I've disassociated myself from all I suppose.</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/21526074/book/157650696">The End of the Moment We Had</a> by Toshiki Okada went on sale September 4, 2018.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

Two novellas make up the end of the moment we had. There was a distance in the prose and characterization that kept me too at arm's length to really enjoy. I appreciated the novellas' explorations of the ways our interior narratives tend to form their own space and time frames but something was missing for me to really care, I guess.

The end of the moment we had is a novella that has two short stories. The first story involved a group of men that had been drinking, and one member of the group meets someone and engages in casual sex over a period of a few days. It focused on how little people try to understand about those around them. The second story was is about a woman who stayed home from work and reflects on the state of her life because she is struggling financially even as her husband works two jobs. The stories focus on every day life and don't freaky offer the reader any kind of resolve. The premise was good but the delivery just wasn't there. It was a struggle to get through this one.

I just could not get into this book, I tried, but I could not. I don't always have to like the characters of books I read, but it either has to have a good story or a good rhythm, a musicality to the writing. Take my brain on a journey, please. This just crammed my brain into a crowded train and dumped me out at the next stop by the flow of the crowd.

Book Review: The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada

A quick read composed of two novellas, perhaps along the lines of Haruki Murakami's "After Dark", fairly well-delivered.

Though definitely not everyone's cup of tea, it candidly touches on aspects uniquely Japanese.

The herd mentality. Play golf, vacation in Hawaii, pay exorbitant prices for brand names, do because other do. Take the train and be boisterous, go clubbing (for whatever purpose, i.e. protest "Bush's war in Iraq"), although unaffordable and everyone's on Dutch treat. There's no such thing as "it's my shout!" in these Japanese scenarios unless the tab's on business.

Love hotels, abundant in Japan mainly due to the lack of privacy in living quarters, usually a "LDK", a small room serving as living, dining, kitchen and futon bedroom at night. No such thing as "your place or mine" in Japan. So a month's rent for a couple of nights stay at a love hotel which one can barely afford is the norm.

"Arbaito" the prevalence of temporary, part-time labor renewed periodically ostensibly to cut on employee benefits, and how this impacts in the novellas, the tight cash situation of the young man in the first story and of the husband and wife in the second one. The young lady in the first story may be presumed as slightly better salaried as an office girl of some sort.

And finally, the "Hikikomori" syndrome in Japan (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引き籠り, lit. "pulling inward, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal") described as reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement afflicting the wife in the second story.

Perhaps the writer endeavored to portray what goes through the mental state of a hikikomori in early, pre-hermetic stages.

This review is based on an ARC (Advance Reading Copy), with many thanks to NetGalley, Pushkin Press and Toshiki Okada for the privilege.

This series has long had a very frustrating lack of quality control, and here we're on the downside of that equation. The first story meanders through a marshmallow of nothingness, and I gave up long before the sex hotel and all the fruitiness started, so badly uninteresting the whole affair was. Only to find, blow me, that the second story was even more piffle. I rate Pushkin as a publishing house, and have enjoyed a lot of their books of different kinds over the years, but this spread of Japanese novellas, short novels and collections really needs a rethink if this offering is the best it thinks it can bring us.

I'm thinking maybe this offering lost something in translation. Every other piece that I've read in this series from Pushkin was fantastic. This one was just mediocre.

Two stories, neither of which are great. The first story about the love hotel was at least palatable. The second story about the sad woman lounging on a futon was irritating to read. Neither of the stories were memorable for me.

These short stories aren’t going to be for everyone as it’s somewhat hard to understand because of the translation. I believe that those that are into Japanese culture would enjoy this. The stories are “out there” but definitely interesting.