Benjamin Constable

Ben Constable is a Brit living in paris. His best friend is an American ex-pat, Tomomi Ishikawa AKA Butterfly. On one of their evenings out, Ben tells Tomomi he would like to write a book about them. Shortly after, Ben receives a suicide note from Tomomi which sends him on a treasure hunt. With his imaginary cat called Cat, Ben goes on an adventure that takes him first to Paris' underground and then to New York. In the process, he learns about Tomomi's life and murders.

Both as author and show more protagonist, Ben Constable makes a very unreliable narrator. We as reader are never sure if he is telling us the truth or even part of the truth or if he is just taking us on our own adventure or if, perhaps he's just shining us on. For that matter, he even hints that he might not be the narrator at all. But he is so likeable with just the right touch of innocence that, in the end, we believe his story because we want to believe it.

As other reviewers have stated, this is a hard book to categorize. it ha adventure, romance, murder, fantasy, literary. It could best perhaps be called a thriller except there are hints throughout the book that it may all be imagination or lies or maybe neither or both. I would say that, if 'strange' were a category, this would fit except not really. It is too well-written and compelling to be so simply labelled.

In the end, though, it really doesn't matter what category to fit it in. It is an engrossing read laced with wit, humour and just a touch of horror. It will keep you guessing right up to the end and even then, well, who knows. show less

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa by Benjamin Constable is an absolutely unique novel that should be considered one of the must read books of the summer. Ben Constable (yes, the main character is named after the author) is good friends with Tomomi “Butterfly” Ishikawa. Butterfly has left Ben a suicide note, sent him emails, and left him her computer. On Butterfly’s computer, and in the emails, are enigmatic clues which eventually send Ben on a mission to find the final answers to all the show more questions Butterfly has managed to raise.

Ben, sometimes accompanied by his invisible/imaginary Cat, begins searching for the clues and notebooks/writing that Butterfly has left for him in Paris and New York City. Ben follows the clues and uncovers stories Butterfly has written, which seem to indicate that she is a serial killer. While he questions the validity of her stories, he also begins to doubt everything he thought he knew about Butterfly – including her suicide.

Butterfly indicates that she wants Ben to write about her life, but has she just set him up with her dark tales? How well do we know our friends? Can we trust them? And is everything exactly how we think it is in the story, or are we misjudging the clues.

While all of this sounds dark, it is a very balanced novel with playful and humorous moments too.

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa is an exquisite novel. Constable’s writing is luscious and stunning. His descriptive abilities and marvelous character development are incredible. I just can’t adequately express how completely I was entranced by the plot and how truly thoughtful and captivating I found Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa.

Very Highly Recommended

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Gallery Books via Netgalley for review purposes. show less

Blogged at River City Reading:
Too often, it seems, we attempt to pigeonhole books into genres rather than giving writers the freedom to create something different. While I certainly see the purpose of categorizing for the sake of recommending or finding books, I hate the thought of novels being overlooked or edited simply because they straddle genre lines.

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa succeeds, in part, because it is not easily categorized. While it has the bones of a mystery or thriller, show more the novel has much more imagination and whimsy than either genre alone. When was the last time the protagonist in your spy series stopped following a trail to talk to an imaginary cat?

At the same time, however, the characters are incredibly self-aware. Constable's voice is always a step ahead of any criticism the reader may have - he even takes a moment to explain why his cat is not restricted by the laws of science. His fantastic ability to play with words and language is an added bonus, as it gives the novel a quirky tone and infuses the book with phrases that act as an extra puzzle.

I hesitate to share too much about the hunt Butterfly left behind and the trail of stories Ben ultimately discovers in hopes of avoiding spoilers, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well suspense and humor were blended to the tail end. Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa is an unexpected, playful jaunt woven by an author with a talent for navigating language that you won't want to miss. show less

I finished the Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa a few days ago, but the words are still haunting me. This book is comprised of incredibly beautiful prose intertwined with a deliciously twisted imagination; I couldn't put it down. It's a well crafted, multi-layered story with complex characters that by the end are emotionally stripped down to reveal how irrevocably broken the circumstances of life have left them.

Sometimes there are books that are so unique, so utterly breathtaking that the show more reader becomes part of the story and for a short period of time your thoughts and views are reconstructed from the inky lines of a page. That's what this was for me; it's a book without rhyme or reason, but one that was lovingly destined for my personal library. show less