Tokyo Ueno Station ★★★☆☆

Tokyo Ueno Station (Click Here To Buy)

★★★☆☆ (3.5 Stars)

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri is a fiction book about a homeless ghost haunting a train station in Japan.

I checked this book out from the library.

Kazu, the main character, spent his life at work. As a child he grew up in poverty, in adulthood, he had to move far away from his wife and children to make money to support them, and his older adulthood is marked by the tragic loss of his son, followed shortly after by his wife. Kazu spends his final years homeless in a park near Ueno Station and once he dies, his ghosts remains in this same area. Kazu recounts his hardships amidst the bustling passerby’s in the station.

Miri is a poet at heart and this comes thru in this short book. There are no chapters, just spaces and lines, which read as much as the words themselves. Miri takes the time to give voice to homeless and poor individuals of Japan. She makes powerful statements about loss and identity. Miri interviewed many homeless individuals living near Ueno Station who were displaced in the bid for the 2020 Olympics.

If you liked Tokyo Ueno Station, I also recommend Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin.

Happy reading,

Ms.Bjork