Penance

This novel is an exploration of how a single violent act can have repercussions far past it's initial horror. It starts with the murder of a young girl while she and her friends are enjoying time together on a day off of school. The girls' mother, unable to accept that her daughter was the target of random violence, curses the other girls for not being able to stop it or identify the killer. The girls go on with school and scatter around the world but are still haunted by that single defining moment of their childhoods. This is a dark, character driven mystery and one I enjoyed more than Minato's other book, Confession.

A good read. Great character development. A heart-touching story.

On a hot summer day in a small Japanese town, five fourth-grade girls are playing on the grounds of their school when they're approached by a stranger. The man says he's at the school to do some maintenance work and he needs some help, and four of the girls stand aside as he takes their friend Emily by the hand and leads her away. Hours later, Emily is dead. Fifteen years later, Yuka, Maki, Akiko, and Sae, now all women in their 20s, reflect on the murder of their friend, the fact that the murderer was never caught, and the impact it had on their lives.

Unless you are from Japan, you may not know that the country had a fifteen-year statute of limitations on murder until 2010. Penance takes place before the statute of limitations was lifted, so it's no coincidence that Emily's death was fresh on each of the four women‘s minds just before the 15th anniversary of her unsolved murder. Penance isn't just an emotional reflection on the trauma of having a friend murdered when you're a child, or else it wouldn't be a Kanae Minato book. It's a psychological thriller and a story of guilt and revenge.

This is the second book I've read by Kanae Minato, and if you're familiar with her other book, Confessions, then you'll know what I mean when I say the structure of Penance is very much the same. Each woman has her own chapter (about a quarter of the book) in which she talks about Emily's murder and what has happened in her life since then. Because they all talk about the day of Emily's death, there's a little repetition as some of them recall the same details, but it's interesting to see the same event from different perspectives.

Having loved Confessions, I was pretty confident I would enjoy Penance and I'm glad I was right. There's always something twisted brewing just beneath the surface of Minato's writing, and I love it so much. I love reading her books knowing something big is coming but having no idea what it is. She's written so many books but only a couple have been translated to English and I sincerely hope we get more soon!

This book is a written tragedy that you can not look away. It's so well written.

A dark twisty tale of childhood trauma, redemption and revenge.

5 schoolgirls out playing are approached by a man, one of the girls is murdered. Years later, one by one, the girls tell the story of their lives since the murder and their stories are truly disturbing.

This is seriously good, one for fans of Gillian Flynn.

In Penance you follow four girls as they try to live their lives after a finding the body of their friend murdered while out playing with them one day. Not only do they have to deal with survivors guilt they also have a threat from the girl's mother looming over their heads.

There are six chapters to this book, each chapter tells the story of one of the girls from the lead up to the murder and on to years later when the statute of limitations is about to run out, with the fifth chapter being dedicated to the dead girls mother and then finally the conclusion. You get to see how Emily's murder affected each of their lives and how each girl tries to fulfill the promise to Emily's mother to either find the murderer or complete an act of penance to her satisfaction.

Each girl offers a unique perspective to Emily and her murder and they all end up in drastically different situations, so it doesn't make the story feel repetitive even though they're technically all telling the same story.

fuck

My enjoyment of the previous book of the author [b:Confessions 19161835 Confessions Kanae Minato https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1401076501l/19161835.SX50.jpg 4371200] was curbed by it's misinformative fearmongering about HIV, although it was competently written and an engrossing thriller. Anytime I thought about it afterwards it left a bad feeling in my mouth so I was hesitant to try this, though I can safely say it's a much better experience. I really enjoyed the format and the way individual stories were connecting and with each story you'd get another piece of the picture. Unlike in her previous book I think all characters were handled with sympathy. It'd be easy for the characters to blend into each other but they each not only dealt with the trauma in a completely different way but also had different voices. The ending was also surprisingly satisfying. 3.5 rolled up cw: very mild spoilers as it happens early on csa among other things. Not as graphic as in [b:Earthlings 50269327 Earthlings Sayaka Murata https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580144195l/50269327.SY75.jpg 64972303] but still something I wish I knew going into.

This review can also be found on my blog.This was, uh, strange. I struggled with it a lot and am not sure if that's due to the writing itself or things getting lost in translation. The tone felt strangely monotone, which made it difficult for me to fully engage with the story. I also struggled to differentiate all the characters – partly because of the flat tone and partly because I felt like I was constantly having names thrown at me. I wish I had enjoyed this more because the format was interesting, as was the story itself. It will definitely stick with me, but it wasn't something I really enjoyed reading.Blog Twitter Instagram Facebook

The format of the book, with each chapter narrated by a different character describing their reaction to the same events, was really interesting and used well.

I flew through this book and every twist and turn surprised me, but it felt kind of like it ran out of steam at the end.

I enjoyed Penance but not as much as Confessions. I don't like to compare both books but because the atmosphere, the tension and how the story is crafted is so familiar (it's by the same author, DUH!), I just can't brush it off. As I said, I enjoyed Penance but there are some parts that made me feel kind of iffy about it. I liked the tension, the character development, the different character perspectives and the overall tone of the book. What I didn't like is how the story kind of went on a tangent of some sort where in random reveals or plot twists were thrown into the plot that came out of nowhere. I also wish that we get to see the murderer's perspective because I think that that would be more interesting and could've been made Penance even better, in my opinion. With that regard, I still think that this book is solid but just didn't blow me away.

chưa đọc Thú tội nên không có gì để so sánh, thật may quá hiho

cuốn này thì tui thích,
4 chương đầu - 4 điểm nhìn của 4 nhân vật nữ từng là nhân chứng cho một vụ giết người tàn nhẫn - đọc thấy rất hay, nhiều đoạn thực sự xuất sắc, vì tập trung nhiều vào cuộc đời và những sang chấn 4 cô bé này gặp phải sau vụ việc đó, hơn là chăm chăm làm sáng tỏ chân tướng một cái sự thật ncl nào đó
(hẳn đây cũng là style viết của Minato, đây mới là cuốn đầu tui đọc, xin đừng đánh giá sự thíu hỉu biết)

nhiều người có vẻ không thích truyện nhiều pov vì cảm thấy một số diễn biến lặp đi lặp lại nhàm chán nhưng cá nhân tui thì rất thích, (phần bởi đầu óc chậm chạp lại hay quên nên tui không giỏi đọc những truyện nhiều tình tiết biến chuyển liên tục), tất nhiên là nếu truyện được viết theo kiểu này đủ hay aka tác giả đủ sức làm lóe sáng những điểm khác biệt, một cách thật tinh tế, khi kể đi kể lại một sự kiện

tui nghĩ là Minato giỏi viết kiểu này, ở cuốn này tui thấy cổ còn giỏi viết về tâm lý, nhất là tâm lý người nữ từ tuổi thiếu niên đến trưởng thành, cái quá trình vốn đã khốc liệt đó qua ngòi bút cổ thực sự khiến tui rợn gáy, nên tui thích Minato ở điểm này nữa – đó là ở truyện cổ nỗi sợ không tập trung ở cái chết hay vụ án trung tâm (nghe thì preachy nhưng cổ viết không preachy tí nào, tui rất biết ơn vì điều đó), nên tui cũng không quan tâm cái kết truyện dễ đoán hay nhạt hay như nào
nhưng đọc hai chương cuối tui thực sự cảm thấy khó ở
1 là vì tui ghét hầu hết tất cả đám người lớn ở cái truyện này, nhất là những khi họ mở miệng
2 là vì tui ghét thậm tệ khi những kẻ ác được tô vẽ backstory, dù ở đây backstory của gã cũng chưa đến mức quá mùi mẫn nhưng hahah không, cảm ơn lah, tui vẫn ghét

Just like Confessions, Penance was written as each character is speaking (and sometimes writing a letter). You don't know at first who is speaking or who they are speaking to, but it doesn't take long to make sense of everything. Also like Confessions, Penance is about revenge and grief.

Maybe because it was so similar to Confessions, I didn't feel like there was really a twist to anything. I expected everything to be horrific. Yet still, I had to know what happened to each friend and I wasn't really satisfied with the ending.

I love how weird and twisted Minato's books are, but they're like land mines of mayhem and trigger warnings.

assaulted and dead. The killer is never found. The girls are unable to describe him or even consistently identify the color of his clothes. The bereaved mother demands that the remaining four girls find the killer or perform an act of penance lest they suffer her revenge. 15 years later we get the story of each of these girls.

The set up is simple enough and from there we get a collection of connected short stories told from the perspective of the remaining 4 girls. Some have the looming creepiness of a Stephen King short while others play out like a Korean revenge drama.

I found the different narrative voices to be a little too passively similar and the unfortunate coincidences of each of the girls situation, only tangentially tied to the initial act, beggared belief. But within the confines of the genre it worked well and there were several moments where Minato earns her title of the queen of iyamisu (or ewww mysteries).