Published By: Penguin
Pages: 144
Released On: 21/08/2025
Translated By: Jesse Kirkwood
Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of a radical sympathy toward criminals has become the norm and a grand skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house wrongdoers in compassionate comfort – Sympathy Tower Tokyo.
Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city’s new centrepiece, but is riven by doubt. Haunted by a terrible crime she experienced as a young girl, she wonders if she might inherently disagree with the values of the project, which should be the pinnacle of her career. As Sara grapples with these conflicting emotions, her relationship with her gorgeous – and much younger – boyfriend grows increasingly strained. In search of solace, in need of creative inspiration, Sara turns to the knowing words of an AI chatbot…
*****
Thanks to Penguin for my advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I had this book on my wishlist to buy and so was excited to receive a proof copy of it.
It’s a short book but a packed one – there’s SO MUCH going on.
Is it about humanity? Redemption? Crime? Language? AI? – there’s a lot to it, especially in a book that is less than 150 pages long, and at times I did think it would be too much, but overall it does seem to balance. It took me a while to get into, as it is a bit all over the place – but I don’t mean that as an insult.
I read a lot of translated books, generally French, Korean, and Japanese. And the general consensus I have about the ones I’ve read, is Japanese fiction particularly tends to be uplifting, whimsical, magical, fantastical – but this wasn’t. This was very real and, at times, quite harsh.
There’s not chapters as such in as much as there are sections, that at times I thought were too long for my personal taste, who likes short, sharp chapters.
Our main character Sara talks a lot about the Japanese language and the evolution of it – for better and worse – and it really intrigued me. I didn’t realise there were so many aspects to the language.
I don’t fully understand it, but from what I’ve got is that Sara has an AI-type thing in her head which manipulates language, is almost editing her thoughts and speech. And whilst that sounds awful, it’s basically all that goes through my head if I see something written down wrong or a rogue apostrophe.
It is a very prose-heavy and dialogue-light book, which I like as that’s how I tend to write.
It’s in first person which, on the whole, I dislike. But I think it worked here. I think because we’re mostly following Sara’s thoughts about the tower and her part in it, that it needs to be in the first person so we can connect with her.
It did get a bit rambly at times and I found myself losing focus. It also flits between POVs but it doesn’t specific whose POV it is, so that get a bit complicated and takes the enjoyment away a bit.
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