This book follows the same vein as the movies Black Swan and Whiplash. Highlighting the characters desire to achieve more, no matter the cost. The structure is also quite disorientating. We jump around to different characters each chapter with no indication of who is narrating or when in the timeline the chapter is occurring. I kept thinking that just wasn't paying attention enough to catch onto who was narrating, but it was explained in the afterward that this was intentional. I feel like this is the kind of book that would get better upon each reread, as the structure would likely start to become more clear.

3.5 stars - "Spent Bullets" chronicles the lives of Taiwanese intellectual elites in both their homeland and Silicon Valley, ultimately asking whether the seemingly endless pursuit of success is worth the brutal emotional, mental and physical tolls.

I think this theme is ever relevant and Tetsuya (still weird to call a Taiwanese author by their Japanese pen name) explores it quite deftly through the narrative, stylistic choices and structure. The latter is particularly compelling with the author's intentional obfuscation of who each chapter's narrator is. I also enjoyed the book's melancholic yet chaotic tone, and how unpredictable the story and characters can be through a single word or action.

Overall, this was an interesting read, though readers should be warned that its content features a whole host of trigger warnings.