Audition by Katie Kitamura

Wednesday, July 30, 2925--San Antonio

Audition by Katie Kitamura is what I consider to be an intellectual novel--one that is constructed in a way that the reader has to think, question, reason, etc.  I almost didn't read it because some of the comments I read made it sound as if it might be confusing.  But I picked it up and never wanted to stop reading it although I never got really excited about reading it.  It has characters that are interesting, but ones that grab you and make you love them.  And it is beautifully written. At 50% when I had ideas of where the story might be going, there was instead a major turn.  At 75% when I was guessing what was really happening (which turned out to be true), it was announced in the news that the book had been longlisted for the Booker Prize this year--the only nominee I have yet read and one that maybe deserves to be shortlisted in a few weeks or months when as they pare down the list to the most deserving.  In the final 5% of the novel there was an added surprise.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.