A propulsive book whose mysterious keep you pushing forward until the end... but when you get there, is it satisfying? Audition is more interested in asking questions than answering them, which can be a bit frustrating at times, but it doesn't overstay its welcome.

This book is exquisitely written. It's so good that it can be read again to fully capture all of the building nuances. It's so well crafted. Excellent and highly recommended. The audiobook was phenomenal as well. This book deserves all the snaps and praise about the roles we play.

I've always been a Katie Kitamura fan and Audition is just another piece that solidifies that for me. After the abstract longing of Intimacies, I entered this with a hope for even more blank space between the concepts. What I love most about Katie's writing is she leaves room for the abstract and the interpretation. I've seen some reviews saying there's just not enough to work with in this novel. To me, that's what makes it stand out. Not everything has to be tied in a perfect bow to be interesting and intriguing fiction. The space gives us room to invent something ourselves, which most novels do not offer.

Gorgeous prose. Readers who enjoy Kitamura's style will like this one. It's less accessible and more experimental than A Separation and Intimacies, and I respect that it takes some big swings.

I totally get why this book is so divisive. You can always expect Katie Kitamura to make daring choices that push readers out of their comfort zone. The theatrical/performance themes were really interesting here, and as always, Kitamura's prose is dazzling.

There were quiet moments here where this book really dazzled, but it overall felt very unfinished, and there were too many loose ends left for the ending to feel satisfying.

One short novel, two alternative universes. This anxiety provoking (and bit confusing) novel will sure leave you with unanswered questions. Fans of noir novels will enjoy.

Katie Kitamura does it again. This book is broken into two parts that oppose each and make you question what is reality. The mysterious plot is written with such wit and dryness that you can’t help but be dragged to the next page. The main character seems to be invested a bit too much in her acting career, making you question what is work and what is real life. If you want a book that is extremely thought-provoking and leaves you wondering even after you have put the book down, then this is a book for you.

In spare language Kitamura examines the internal musings of an actress who informs of her marriage, her development of her acting career and her relationship with a young actor. As a reader we are slowly given glimpses into the protagonist's thoughts and feelings. Building tensions arise just
before there are illuminations. This is a virtuoso performance from an important author.

Well written and really two books in one. Same characters but with two entirely different plots. An interesting look at the acting process and what a craft it truly is. The connection between the first and second half was beyond my comprehension- and I would bet of many other readers.

Unsettling is the perfect word for this book. I took it as a sliding doors perspective on an actress and paths of motherhood: Act One was if she had never had kids, Act Two was if she had. I liked the theatre exercise nature of the plot and understood what it was trying to do, but I don't know if I particularly enjoyed the reading experience which felt disjointed and cold. I'm a big fan of Kitamura's other works, which have a little more root-for-able protagonists-- but I definitely have been thinking and talking about this book since finishing it! The one thing I can't get past is the last 15% going off the rails. Why was Tomas holding Hana's breast? What was Hana's whole deal? Why were they crawling on the floor? Undeniably a literary talent, Kitamura is one I look forward to reading more of.

This audiobook captured the confined quarters that are usually the hallmark of Kitamura's novels. There are swirling family issues among the narrator, her husband and the young person posing as her son. The reader did a nice job of maintaining a calm voice in a strange world. I think I will have to read this book eventually to get more out of it than I did from the audiobook.

This cerebral book led to very lively discussion for the book club I facilitate -- the slipperiness of any given interpretation inspired even some of my most "conventional" readers to brave a stand on the actress's perspective and avoid moral judgment. My favorite thing about the novel was how its taut and elegant prose created a tautness, and tension, that kept the narrative moving in an exciting direction without an A to B plot or neat resolution. An accomplished balancing act.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

This being my first Kitamura novel, I had no idea what to expect, but I had heard from trusted fellow readers that it was a book that would make your head explode. And boy did it! I thought this was well out of my wheelhouse, but it might be more my type of book than I originally thought! I have Intimacies on my shelf, and then bought A Separation when I saw the author in person and I can't wait to read them. There's not much to say about this book that won't give things away. Go in knowing as little as possible except that you won't want to put it down. I gobbled this up in less than 24 hours because it hooked me from the first page. It left me with nothing but questions, especially "What the heck did I just read?!" but in the best way. This won't be for everyone, but if books that break your brain and leave you wondering what you're supposed to think are your thing, this book is for you.

Maybe everything doesn’t need to be an experiment.

I love the precision of Kitamura’a writing as well as how much meaning she can cram in to relatively few words. That said, the trouble with this experimental style of storytelling is that if the experiment fails, you aren’t left with much meaning or any way to relate to the text.

I liked Intimacies and thought it was a much more successful version of Kitamura’s preferred brand of narrative. The content didn’t work as well here, and I’m left wondering what someone with Kitamura’s writerly gifts could do if she shed the gimmicks and just told us a story.

There’s something to the conceptual theme that there could be two versions of one person’s reality and how changing critical situational details might change our role in our own lives as well as how we perceive the roles of those around us.

It’s smart to set this against a background in the theater world with a stage actress as the protagonist, and the all the world’s a stage of it all is what made this book at least structurally and metaphorically interesting to me.

Sadly that couldn’t push the story past the fact that the characters just aren’t compelling, and the overall feel of this short novel is that one has just read the entry of a talented writer in an MFA program writing exercise that is meant to build a writer’s skill rather than to become publishable material.

Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies, is back with a short but sharp novel of perspectives, performances and preconceptions. Full of abstraction and metaphor, Audition is two acts about two acts. Read it and then read it again.

This book was so well-written and kept me riveted even when I was confused by the plot (the differences between parts 1 and 2). As I first read I couldn't tell if it was an unreliable narrator or parallel timelines, but I was invested in the characters and the point of view of the narrator about what she experienced.

Mazelike, sometimes inscrutable novel from Kitamura; as usual, her prose is razor-sharp and her gaze his acute. This one is probably the most unusual in the informal trilogy of novels she has written and the middle section involves a kind of writerly gambit that I think is very difficult to pull off. But I think Kitamura more or less does pull it off, as hard as it is, because I've still been thinking about it for months. Questions of identity and role and performance abound here. Kitamura remains one of the American novelists I am most excited about.

Katie Kitamura books are difficult for me to review. I am always thankful I read them, but I do not necessarily enjoy them. Kitamura’s writing is beautiful, but like her previous novels, Audition is high-concept and understanding the book feels more like work than it does reading. The concept of this book is straightforward. An aging actress meets a young man for lunch. But is their relationship what it appears to be? And for that matter, is anything in this book what it appears to be? While I can’t say I enjoyed the book, it definitely lends itself to discussion. Kitamura is clearly a very talented writer, I’m just not sure her writing is for me.