The bratty face of nostalgia

Spanish Edition.

Goodbye Tsugumi (Tsugumi) by Banana Yoshimoto.

It is like a weird orgasm. It builds slowly and steady, but lacks any promise, which on itself has its charm and the mood and nostalgia are the main axis in the book, and when it slides to the end like a dream, it just stops. Period. It is nice, but something seems amiss, like a beautiful moan that drowns itself.

I enjoyed very much the book, the moody and introspective narration is beautiful, although I felt a lack of fluidity from one chapter to the other. The main characters are good, it gets very nicely how certain people shape aspects of yourself just by entering your life like a wave and many times leave the same way, but surely remain; not in a knife carving shape, but in unspoken dispositions, the colors of our memories.

The themes are woven with delicacy: nostalgia, loss, home and family. My only beef was the ending, just to point out, I don’t see anything wrong when a certain action or expected outcome doesn’t arrive, It may be an important aspect of the story in itself, it just felt sudden, like the author took the time to slowly make a pattern, give insights to the details and I felt that same insight was missing in the end. Just a tiny bit more and it would be amazing, a lovely read nonetheless.

Confused note. I saw this book tagged like YA (Young Adult) and that category always fails to convince me. Besides, the concept of something written for a specific audience and that a book written with a protagonist of that same age passes as almost the same baffles me. Maybe is one of those things old people don't understand. :D