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75th out of 348 books
—
1,239 voters
All She Was Worth
Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a "deep and moody" (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) journey through the dark side of Japan's consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. A beautiful young woman vanishes, and th
...morePaperback, 304 pages
Published
May 12th 1999
by Mariner Books
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Not only well-paced but well-written, this mystery of the missing fiancee lost its momentum in only one scene, in which a Japanese businessman felt it necessary to take an hour out of his busy day to explain to another Japanese citizen the country's policy on identification cards, loans, and bankruptcy. Sure, I may not have known this information as an American and it was helpful to learm, but it was carried out so ollishly and pedantically in this translation, I wish the editors had found some...more
The way the investigator's boy partially knows, comes to know, and yet can't fully know the motives of the adult characters perfectly evokes the way no person can truly know another's inner world.
Inside this milieux we explore the way debt and credit create another layer of personae and motive - for people to tend, investigate, punish and escape in their encounters with one another.
A world where a person can exhibit fastidious personal habits, love and be loved, while at the same time live dupli...more
Inside this milieux we explore the way debt and credit create another layer of personae and motive - for people to tend, investigate, punish and escape in their encounters with one another.
A world where a person can exhibit fastidious personal habits, love and be loved, while at the same time live dupli...more
The blurb on the back says that All She Was Worth is an "artful blending of puzzle-solving and social commentary," and I suppose it does blend those two, but I'm not sure about how artfully it was done. The social commentary part was pretty heavy-handed, with more than one long-winded description of the evils of the credit industry. The thing is, those descriptions weren't even really necessary; the story got that message through without them.
There were a couple parts I didn't really understand...more
There were a couple parts I didn't really understand...more
أخترت قراءة الرواية بسبب ملخصها على أنها رواية بوليسية
ولكنها للأسف لم تروق لى أطلاقاً
مملة بشكل كبير _ الجزء الأول منها وبعد الصفحة 350 يجذبوا القارئ أما بالمنتصف فأحداث شديدة الملل
فكرة الرواية جيدة :جمعت بين جانب بوليسي وأن كان ضعيف وجانب أجتماعى وأقتصادى متمثل فى مشكلة القروض الأئتمانية وأثرها على الأشخاص وقد يصل الأمر ببعضهم بأعلان الأفلاس الشخصى أو اللجوء إلى الأنتحار.
ولم تعجبنى النهاية المفتوحة أطلاقاً..خاصة بعد أرهاق القارئ فى كم كبير من الأحداث والمواقف طول الرواية
ولكنها للأسف لم تروق لى أطلاقاً
مملة بشكل كبير _ الجزء الأول منها وبعد الصفحة 350 يجذبوا القارئ أما بالمنتصف فأحداث شديدة الملل
فكرة الرواية جيدة :جمعت بين جانب بوليسي وأن كان ضعيف وجانب أجتماعى وأقتصادى متمثل فى مشكلة القروض الأئتمانية وأثرها على الأشخاص وقد يصل الأمر ببعضهم بأعلان الأفلاس الشخصى أو اللجوء إلى الأنتحار.
ولم تعجبنى النهاية المفتوحة أطلاقاً..خاصة بعد أرهاق القارئ فى كم كبير من الأحداث والمواقف طول الرواية
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This is my first venture into Japanese crime fiction and Miyuki Miyabe is purported to be one of Japan’s most popular and best known crime authors. The blurb on the back calls this novel “a suspenseful noir thriller,” which I don’t think describes it at all. The quotation from The Washington Post describes it best: “an artful blend of puzzle-solving and social commentary.”
You could almost call this a police procedural. Shunsuke Honma, a seasoned police detective on leave because of injury and by...more
You could almost call this a police procedural. Shunsuke Honma, a seasoned police detective on leave because of injury and by...more
Miyabe, Miyuki. ALL SHE WAS WORTH. (1992; this ed. in translation 1999). ****. Ms. Miyabe is a very popular novelist in Japan, and this novel, her first translated into English, was voted Best Mystery and Best Novel of the Year when published there. Although it is described as a noir thriller, you will find that Japanese noir is very different from that genre from the rest of the world. Japanese crime novels are very labyrinthine in their construction and the protagonist is usually extremely tho...more
I picked up All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe a few months ago because I liked Brave Story, a novel geared towards younger audiences. All She Was Worth was Miyabe’s first adult book that I’ve read and one of the few mystery novels I’ve read this year.
All She Was Worth starts off with the disappearance of a woman and follows an on-leave detective as he tries to find her and uncover the unusual circumstances in which she disappeared. Although that’s the main mystery flowing through the book, I di...more
All She Was Worth starts off with the disappearance of a woman and follows an on-leave detective as he tries to find her and uncover the unusual circumstances in which she disappeared. Although that’s the main mystery flowing through the book, I di...more
Jan 23, 2012
Shovelmonkey1
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by:
bookcrossing readers
All She was Worth was billed to me as a mystery and thriller and aside from reading Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, I've not read a lot of Japanese Literature so I was intrigued to see how this would pan out. Would I be introduced to Japan's answer to Lisbeth Salander, Endeavour Morse or Magnum PI? Er no. None of the above. You will be introduced to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Shunsuke Honma who is polite, and dogged and due to an injury at work is taking his crime solving at a mor...more
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This detective novel was engrossing. Our protagonist, Honma is a police officer on medical leave. He really has no authority whatsoever at this time and tries to concentrate on getting better but is restless. In comes his deceased wife's cousin's son whose fiancee has suddenly disappeared and needs help finding out what happened discreetly. As the investigation continues, things become rapidly complicated.
The pacing of this story is a bit uneven. The beginning starts out very slow and continues...more
The pacing of this story is a bit uneven. The beginning starts out very slow and continues...more
I was on board with this book almost entirely through, but then somewhere in the last chapter or two felt that the "answer" was a bit less interesting than I had hoped when I went into the reading. The book is still good, particularly as insight into Japanese society and culture in the 1990s.
What's especially "fun" and interesting about this book is that it's so relevant still to today. Credit card debt. Ah, who doesn't have any of that? (Besides me, but only because I don't have one.) I'm surro...more
What's especially "fun" and interesting about this book is that it's so relevant still to today. Credit card debt. Ah, who doesn't have any of that? (Besides me, but only because I don't have one.) I'm surro...more
I think this book is what got me interested in exploring Japanese fiction in the first place. It just didn't read the way I had expected it to and I was very impressed. I found the whole idea of the book, the nature of our missing fugitive's financial crimes, fascinating. This mystery is really all about the journey and is filled with an amazing sense of place and excellent character development.
This is quite readable, though I'm not entirely sure why. I found the characterisations quite distant (possibly because of the translation), the mystery not terribly mysterious (mostly focused on finding out how the crime was achieved, not why or by whom), and the ending quite abrupt. Yet some of the book's central themes—the dangers of materialism, of the credit system and how people get caught up in it—are sadly just as relevant now as they were when this book was written in the early 90s. My...more
Dec 25, 2011
BoekenTrol
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
shovelmonkey1
Recommended to BoekenTrol by:
chich; Elmindreda
Since I can't update 'my' copy with the BCID of the book, here's the link to the book at BookCrossing:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7...
I liked this book. Not because I think it was such a great thriller, but because of other things.
First of all I loved the insight in the Japanese society. How people live, how things are organised. That world is so different from mine (and therefor so intriguing), that any description of more or less normal Japanese living is welcome.
Secondly, I liked the...more
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7...
I liked this book. Not because I think it was such a great thriller, but because of other things.
First of all I loved the insight in the Japanese society. How people live, how things are organised. That world is so different from mine (and therefor so intriguing), that any description of more or less normal Japanese living is welcome.
Secondly, I liked the...more
I found this on my parents' bookshelf when I was visiting over the holiday. I am glad that I decided to give it a try. Miyabe writes an absorbing mystery about stolen identities and the harsh consequences of debt in early '90's Japan. I have mixed feelings about the ending; it is a brilliant stroke, given the development of the mystery, but part of me wishes Miyabe had written one more chapter.
I also liked the detective she developed, and I'm disappointed that Honma and his family (biological an...more
I also liked the detective she developed, and I'm disappointed that Honma and his family (biological an...more
All She was Worth is a mystery set in early 1990s Japan. Homna is a Tokyo detective on medical leave who is asked by a relative to find his fiancée. This informal missing-persons case quickly morphs into a more complicated mystery which has Homna sifting out clues in multiple cities. This story is a good introduction to another culture and a platform for anti-consumerism commentary, but the translation is a bit uneven. For example, there are strange colloquialisms and phrases like "God only know...more
I don't think this was well-translated from Japanese. Not that I know what the Japanese version was like, but there were some really funky language things going on, and a translator's note or something would have been nice. It read like a pulpier mystery and isn't a piece of literature, but the story was engrossing and it held my attention, other than the huge swathes about the credit system, which I skipped. It didn't seem relevant to the story and seemed like a nationalistic insert. If I were...more
'All She was Worth' was a refreshing change from the overplayed gendered stereotypes of one of Japan's most notorious contemporary female writers, Banana Yoshimoto. Miyuki Miyabe is currently one of the top female writers in Japan. With good reason. The characters are well developed, and I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns of Japanese bureaucracy and paperwork... which is, of course, why I read the novel. It was wonderful to have the intricacies of personal relationships become entangled...more
A stunning look at Japanese society, economy (consumer lending culture in particular), culture and more in the 90s. Eye-opening and extremely well-researched (without being heavy or boring) by Miyuki Miyabe. Fiction that tells a very real story of one woman trying to disappear, and the police investigator trying to find her.
Riveting, well-written contemporary fiction by one of Japan's most popular and prolific female writers. I've heard this book is even used in some Western universities to stu...more
Riveting, well-written contemporary fiction by one of Japan's most popular and prolific female writers. I've heard this book is even used in some Western universities to stu...more
A very solid investigation mystery. The book follows the ins and outs of tracking down a criminal from the perspective of a detective on medical leave. Lots of insights, lots of explanations, and yet still surprisingly readable. The story doesn't get bogged down in its descriptions of the credit system or the histories of various characters.
The only real problem I have, is that there wasn't really a climax to this book. It was a long slow fuse, everything building up, puzzle pieces coming togeth...more
The only real problem I have, is that there wasn't really a climax to this book. It was a long slow fuse, everything building up, puzzle pieces coming togeth...more
Jul 24, 2012
Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
giappone
Shoko sparisce poco prima delle nozze e il suo fidanzato chiede aiuto a un parente ex detective della polizia.
Ma quello che i due scoprono quasi subito è che la ragazza non è chi dice di essere. La vera Shoko è un'altra. Ora il mistero da risolvere diventa la vera identità della ragazza che si era spacciata per lei...
La domanda che è dietro il racconto è semplice: si può dire di conoscere veramente una persona, se non si conosce il suo passato?
E la risposta, quasi subito evidente, è no.
Il Passat...more
Ma quello che i due scoprono quasi subito è che la ragazza non è chi dice di essere. La vera Shoko è un'altra. Ora il mistero da risolvere diventa la vera identità della ragazza che si era spacciata per lei...
La domanda che è dietro il racconto è semplice: si può dire di conoscere veramente una persona, se non si conosce il suo passato?
E la risposta, quasi subito evidente, è no.
Il Passat...more
I gave this book 3.75/5 stars at InsatiableBooksluts.com.
Review excerpt:
"The book does drag a bit in a couple of spots–nothing terrible, but Miyabe goes to great lengths to explain Japan’s 1980′s credit crisis that caused an economic bubble, possibly a bit further than necessary to the plot of the story. She seems to want to impress upon readers that having had bad credit doesn’t give one bad character, which was surely an important message at the time, but borders on preachy now. She also expla...more
Review excerpt:
"The book does drag a bit in a couple of spots–nothing terrible, but Miyabe goes to great lengths to explain Japan’s 1980′s credit crisis that caused an economic bubble, possibly a bit further than necessary to the plot of the story. She seems to want to impress upon readers that having had bad credit doesn’t give one bad character, which was surely an important message at the time, but borders on preachy now. She also expla...more
The main premise of this book concerns a Tokyo police detective, Shunsuke Honma, who is on medical/disability leave, trying to locate the missing fiance of a distant relative. As he begins to peel back the complicated layers of this woman's past, he uncovers a story of personal identity theft and even murder. Overwhelming debt, personal bankruptcy, and ruthless loan sharks are central to the plot of why the fiance went missing and the theft of personal identity.
One of this novel's main themes s...more
One of this novel's main themes s...more
Jan 29, 2010
David
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to David by:
Washington Post Book Review
Shelves:
read-mystery
If you're looking for a puzzle mystery that will leave you guessing until the end, or a tough-guy mystery with action and suspense, this is NOT your book. I like novels that, while diverting, also give me a look at a place, time and/or mindset that I normally wouldn't know much about, so I enjoyed this book. Unlike Western entries into this same genre, the characters in this book are largely decent people who go around helping, supporting, and caring about each other, and the policeman hero is a...more
Debt, deception, and demise: this novel presents an interesting and in-depth account of a woman's bondage to debt and submission to its consequences. If the mingle of crushing debt, false identities, the mafia, and murder are the desired elements for a fast-paced mystery story, then Miyabe provides the neccessaries.
All She Was Worth by Miyabe Miyuki is a dark story about a young man in search for his fiancee who has gone missing. With the help of his uncle, a police detective, who in turn enlist...more
All She Was Worth by Miyabe Miyuki is a dark story about a young man in search for his fiancee who has gone missing. With the help of his uncle, a police detective, who in turn enlist...more
This story takes our fears of identity theft and raises them to a new level.
I liked this book. Aside from the translation difficulties which made it very wordy and often tedious reading, the mystery itself was good. I would recommend it for the mystery...but you'll find yourself skimming at points.
brief plot overview:
The novel tells the story of Tokyo Detective Honma, at home and on leave from his police job because he is recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. One night he receives a strang...more
I liked this book. Aside from the translation difficulties which made it very wordy and often tedious reading, the mystery itself was good. I would recommend it for the mystery...but you'll find yourself skimming at points.
brief plot overview:
The novel tells the story of Tokyo Detective Honma, at home and on leave from his police job because he is recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. One night he receives a strang...more
I enjoyed this one. It's a straightforward police procedural, old school style, but it kept my interest and I liked that one of the contributing factors behind the crime, which she discussed in detail, was the credit crisis of the 80's in Japan (and the ongoing issue of consumer debt. Really she went into a little too much detail, but I was interested so I didn't care. But mostly, I really liked the gentle, polite detective Shunsuke and the descriptions of Japanese culture/society.
I agree with some of the reviews that All She Was Worth is probably more a mix of police procedural and mystery but I still found the story engaging and enlightening. The author is a bit heavy handed with the social commentary but I learned a little about Japanese consumer credit and why identity theft is much more difficult to pull off in Japan due to the family registry system and job id cards that make it very difficult to hide from your past. Also, the story does end abruptly and will leave...more
Although the premise of this mystery is relatively simple (a detective is trying to figure out what happened to a missing woman), the plot is set forth with an expert hand, and the suspense builds as we follow the detective on his quest. The characters were also well drawn and the relationship between the detective, his son and the various individuals within their social circle provides a very satisfying snapshot of 'modern' life in Japan.
Excellent book, very gripping mystery. The book touches base on some major issues of modernity in Japan. What does it mean to be an individual in a society where the group, the family, was the basis of identity? How do you make the change? How does this affect the citizens of Japan as it modernizes? How does this affect women specifically? Such questions are addressed in the novel in a very interesting web of mystery, leaving you feeling compassion for the misunderstood perpetrator.
Good plot which gives also an unusual glimpse into Japanese society. The book should have made a great impact in its time, as it was chosen 'the best mystery"and "the best novel of the year". I`m not accounted with the present situation of credit system in Japan, and it`s quite possible these problems are still present but to me it sounded a bit outdated. Nevertheless,though not much impressed, I enjoyed this quick read.
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See also 宮部 みゆき.
Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき Miyabe Miyuki) is a popular contemporary Japanese author active in a number of genres including science fiction, mystery fiction, historical fiction, social commentary, and juvenile fiction.
Miyabe started writing novels at the age of 23. She has been a prolific writer, publishing dozens of novels and winning many major literary prizes, including the Yamamoto S...more
More about Miyuki Miyabe...
Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき Miyabe Miyuki) is a popular contemporary Japanese author active in a number of genres including science fiction, mystery fiction, historical fiction, social commentary, and juvenile fiction.
Miyabe started writing novels at the age of 23. She has been a prolific writer, publishing dozens of novels and winning many major literary prizes, including the Yamamoto S...more
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