A Tale for the Time Being

I was going to power through this because even though I wasn't loving it, I was invested in the story and finding out what happened to Nao, even though I found Ruth's sections to be mostly boring until like 60 percent of the way through. But then, we got to the sections with Haruki #1's training diaries. This book is super dark, and plot-wise, it's mostly about suicide and violent bullying and characters wanting to die but not being able to properly.

Haruki #1 was a kamikaze pilot during WWII, and his great-niece Nao holds him in high esteem for being a soldier and dying honorably, so at first I was glad to have his perspective, but in a book that was already chock full of darkness and violence, I just didn't need the added violence of soldiers using enemy babies for bayonet practice. That was my bridge too far.

DNF at 81%. I tried to fast-forward the audiobook to the next section (Ruth's), but then in the first few sentences realized I'd missed a major plot point by skipping ahead 30 minutes. I couldn't bring myself to jump back and listen to more gruesome violence. I'll listen to this book's episode on the Overdue podcast to find out how it ends.