the next good book

Intimacies

By Katie Kitamura

6/10
(6/10)

225 pages

What’s it about? A new interpreter has moved to The Hague to work in the international court.  As she navigates work, friendships, and a new love interest we follow her story. What did it make me think about? What exactly is this book getting at? Should I read it? I found this book relatively easy to read, even though the plot moves slowly. Katie Kitamura writes beautifully but I had trouble connecting to the main character in this story. The most interesting passages in the book describe her work as in interpreter. For me the rest of the story is opaque and just not that compelling.  I would like to read her earlier novel “A Separation”. I read this book because it was on several “best of 2021” lists- so maybe it is just me….   Quote- “That was, I thought, the prospect offered by a new relationship, the opportunity to be someone other than yourself.”

What’s it about?

A new interpreter has moved to The Hague to work in the international court.  As she navigates work, friendships, and a new love interest we follow her story.

What did it make me think about?

What exactly is this book getting at?

Should I read it?

I found this book relatively easy to read, even though the plot moves slowly. Katie Kitamura writes beautifully but I had trouble connecting to the main character in this story. The most interesting passages in the book describe her work as in interpreter. For me the rest of the story is opaque and just not that compelling.  I would like to read her earlier novel “A Separation”. I read this book because it was on several “best of 2021” lists- so maybe it is just me….

 

Quote-

“That was, I thought, the prospect offered by a new relationship, the opportunity to be someone other than yourself.”

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