Right from the first paragraph, you know that you are in for a dark and dreary ride. A few pages in, you'll wonder why you're reading this. But a few chapters in, you'll marvel in sheer awe at Ryu Murakami's morbid writing style and plot devices - and how radically different they are, as compared to another Murakami you might know.
This rollercoaster ride follows the tale of two foster brothers, Kiku and Hashi - both abandoned at birth, and growing up warped as a result. Both find their lives extremely wanting, and as a result, find different ways to cope with the emotional baggage they lug around - one finds solace in singing, and one in DATURA - a mind-bending plot device that you have to read to believe.
This is the polarizing kind of masterpiece that you'll forever be in two minds of - in happiness that it exists, as a fine example of human creativity, and despair that a human mind managed to think up of the plot, the scenery and the characters. If alcohol were a book - this would be it. Always enjoyed in small doses, and difficult to return to once finished - because you don't want the hangover again. ( )

This book made my poisonous plant loving heart sing.

Kalynn writes strong characters, from the side to the main, everyone is well developed and has all the good and bad you'd find in your own life. So much emotion from each person is packed into this book, so I am warning you now to grab a tissue.

When we meet Briseis, she is cautious, reserved and always tense from holding back her powers. But when we leave her, she has come to life. Bold, daring and confident, her growth in this story is one of my favorite parts. She makes mistakes, miss judges, and fumbles but she keeps pushing forward to discover the secrets of her family lineage. The author captures her age so perfectly, none of the weird whiny YA trope junk. Just a girl trying to find her way as a young adult, in a world that won't understand her powers.

I loved her family, her parents are so nurturing, and warm with the right amount of stern / spice.

It was impossible to put this book down to life, the story moves forward in a way that keeps you engaged with the action, while building up lore. The tie ins for Greek mythology is fantastic. There aren't enough stories about hecate, and I adored Kalynn's take on history. All of the magical / witch type elements are mysterious, yet believable. I hope we get more in depth history of some of the town folk as the series progresses.

I can't wait for the next book in this series, the ending is such a huge cliffhanger, yet completely wraps up the plot for this book, which is insane.

You'll love this book if you love magic in plain sight, family history, and modern day quests. ( )

Two boys, Hashi and Kiku, separately abandoned in coin lockers as newborns, somewhat miraculously survive their poor start in life only to discover that what follows makes their beginnings seem positively mundane. The boys are adopted together and their lives are forever linked. Kiku grows strong and athletic, a pole-vaulter with blinding speed. Hashi discovers that he has a talent for song, or perhaps more accurately sound, which he uses to envelop and overwhelm his audiences. But they’ve both got a lot of anger management issues and a compulsive desire for, first, matricide (if only they could find their missing biological mothers) and beyond that the destruction of everything and everyone else. Moving from one extreme, even surreal, situation to the next the boys eventually find their way to Tokyo and, in different ways, realize their dreams, or nightmares.

Nothing will really prepare you for the aggressive violence of this novel, unless you’ve been saturated by the endless violent imagery of much anime and Japanese cinema. Whether that itself is a result of the influence of Murakami’s writing or was the nascent spur to it, I do not know. The effect, however, on current readers is probably less visceral than it may have been in the 1980s when this book first burst upon the scene in Japan. Indeed I found the heightened teen angst and anger tiresome and much of the violence to be risible, even though I could acknowledge how groundbreaking this might have appeared at the time. In the end it just couldn’t hold my interest. Not recommended, even if your favourite niece doing a degree in Japanese Studies tells you you’ve just got to read it. ( )

Since I went into this knowing some of the Japanese history, it made the story much more interesting. It's a very twisted book and totally took me off guard by the events that happens throughout the book. ( )

It's so easy to assume that Murakami is just going for shock value, that he's just trying to squick the reader, and the first sentence definitely supports that. But I really don't think he is. He makes the reader nauseated in order that they may purge the nasty things within themselves.And this book described That Moment so well that it was worth the purging. It made me remember and it made me think and more importantly, it made me want to live, to really fucking live, even as it was destroying everything.Few books can do that. ( )