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Rainbirds
Rainbirds
Rainbirds
Audiobook10 hours

Rainbirds

Written by Clarissa Goenawan

Narrated by David Shih

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister, Keiko's, sudden death. She was viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister's affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to abandon the family and Tokyo for this desolate town years ago.

But Ren soon finds himself picking up where Keiko left off, accepting both her teaching position at a local cram school and the bizarre arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician's mansion in exchange for reading to the man's catatonic wife.

As he comes to know the figures in Akakawa, from the enigmatic politician to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, alluring student named Rio, Ren delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed, trying to piece together what happened the night of her death. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren struggles to find solace in the void his sister has left behind.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 16, 2018
ISBN9781681689531
Rainbirds
Author

Clarissa Goenawan

Clarissa Goenawan is an Indonesian-born Singaporean writer and translator. Her award-winning short stories have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in Singapore, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, the UK, and the US. Rainbirds, her debut novel, has been published in eleven different languages. Her second novel, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida, came out in 2020. Watersong is her third novel.

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Reviews for Rainbirds

Rating: 3.568627417647059 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

102 ratings21 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Deliciously depressing.Ren Ishida has traveled to the small town of Akakawa from Tokyo to settle up his newly departed sister's affairs. In trying to discover a little bit about his sister's life and perhaps even her death, odd things begin to happen to him and puzzles seem to present themselves. Can Ren discover the mystery behind his sister's murder? Or will her Secrets die in this small town?Although this 321 page novel is well written and begins very well I lost interest after about page 150. The author has a very gifted way of painting the scenes for you and giving not too much detail but just enough to where you can actually feel that you are in the book and seeing what the main character is seeing. I still have this taste of ramen noodles in my mouth after reading this book. The characters have lots of depth and are very well developed.The plot however is a different story. Or maybe not the plot itself but perhaps it's getting to the point that was the problem. I've never read a book that I both liked and disliked at the same time before so it's hard for me to describe.I like the beginning very much. The author hits the ground running and keeps you guessing long enough to keep you interested until about halfway through the novel. That is when things start to drag out and seem to become monotonous.The ending, though surprising, was also very lackluster. I don't know maybe with the build-up from the beginning I was expecting a little bit more.All in all I'd have to say that I would recommend this book to a very select audience of readers. Definitely people who don't mind a very depressing novel that goes downhill steadily from beginning to end.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was a very hard book to get into. It took me all month to read it as I was not too excited about picking it up again after putting it down. I found it very disjointed and the main character was very unprofessional. The author had a good idea for a plot but didn’t carry it off too well. Hopefully she can redeem herself with a better book next time.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Utterly boring, the book felt so pointless, the characters were one note and the main character was annoying. The only reason I finished the book is because I was listening to it on audio and David Shih was an amazing narrator.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great quality. Be honest, this is a nice book. I like it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah very nice nice nice nice nice this is very good audiobook compare to others but the sound is not good for listening. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good quality, interesting story. Highly recommended to check this out.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rainbirds is quite different in style and tone than most of the books I have read. I cannot recall reading any contemporary fiction by a Japanese author – that doesn’t mean that I haven’t, it just means I cannot remember. I do read quite a few books in a year. I’ve read historical fiction books by Japanese authors/that take place in Japan but the issues and the times were much different.Ren is a young man just finishing up his graduate education when he receives a phone call that none of us would ever want to receive: his sister is dead and her death was due to murder. His world, to say the least implodes. His sister cared for him as a child since his parents were always fighting. One day she left the house suddenly and moved to a small town. They kept in regular touch by phone.He decides after talking to the police in the town to remain. In fact, he not only remains he almost inhabits her life. He takes what was her job, he moves into what was her room. As he seeks answers he only finds more questions and he learns that he really didn’t know his sister at all.From the opening page there was a feeling of heaviness that hangs over the tale. As Ren tries to find out why someone would so brutally murder a sister he thought he knew well but as he tried to help the police he realizes that his knowledge of her life was superficial at best. He didn’t know why she moved to the small town from Tokyo. He didn’t know if she had a boyfriend. He talked to her once a week on the phone and that was it.He settles into his new/her old life and he tries to learn what he can. As the story unfolds it flashes back to their life before she left home or to incidences from Ren’s life to help illuminate different bits of the tale. Ren is not always a likable guy – in fact, he really does not treat the women in his life very well at all. This includes his sister and the woman he is currently dating as well as some others from his past. He seems to see them as being there to be of service to him rather than any relationships to be reciprocal. He has a lot to learn in how he manages his relationships.As Ren searches for answers about his sister’s death he learns some things he doesn’t like but he comes to terms with a side of her he did not know nor understand. It ends up teaching him about himself.This is the kind of book that pulls you along and then something happens that makes you think. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. There are a number of negative behaviours going on in this tale – some belong to Ren as I mentioned above. others belong to ancillary characters. Some make sense within the story others I still wonder why they were included.All that being written I found the book quite compelling and thought provoking. It stayed with me for several days afterward. The presence of such flawed characters certainly makes for interesting reading and the ending leaves a certain hope for the future. Not all is resolved and that uncertainty does also leave the reader a bit off balance. It’s a book for this current time I believe.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I listened to this 8 disc book over a period of several months. This is a mystery drama read by a man who does a great job with character voices. This book is long and descriptive. I like rich descriptions, but there were many times that I became lost and was unable to follow the story. I'm still not sure what connections existed between the sister and her supposed killer. I would have a hard time recommending this book to anyone else, unfortunately.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Deliciously depressing.Ren Ishida has traveled to the small town of Akakawa from Tokyo to settle up his newly departed sister's affairs. In trying to discover a little bit about his sister's life and perhaps even her death, odd things begin to happen to him and puzzles seem to present themselves. Can Ren discover the mystery behind his sister's murder? Or will her Secrets die in this small town?Although this 321 page novel is well written and begins very well I lost interest after about page 150. The author has a very gifted way of painting the scenes for you and giving not too much detail but just enough to where you can actually feel that you are in the book and seeing what the main character is seeing. I still have this taste of ramen noodles in my mouth after reading this book. The characters have lots of depth and are very well developed.The plot however is a different story. Or maybe not the plot itself but perhaps it's getting to the point that was the problem. I've never read a book that I both liked and disliked at the same time before so it's hard for me to describe.I like the beginning very much. The author hits the ground running and keeps you guessing long enough to keep you interested until about halfway through the novel. That is when things start to drag out and seem to become monotonous.The ending, though surprising, was also very lackluster. I don't know maybe with the build-up from the beginning I was expecting a little bit more.All in all I'd have to say that I would recommend this book to a very select audience of readers. Definitely people who don't mind a very depressing novel that goes downhill steadily from beginning to end.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    While the premise to this sibling mystery sounds appealing, I had a lot of trouble getting into the story because of the halting voice of the narrator. I do not like his cadence or pace and I will have to read the book apart from this audiobook.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I received this book on cd from Librarythings. I think this would present much better in Novel form. The person doing the reading was not able to do the woman’s voices, as a result it was off putting. I found myself thinking the protagonist had questionable activities for a teacher. Not to mention his repeated interactions with a young student in his class. All the while forming judgements of those around him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 stars ⭐️ I don’t read a lot of Japanese literary fiction and it’s been quite a while since I’ve picked one up but I’m happy I had the opportunity to listen to this one on audiobook because it was a good read. This was definitely a slow-burn of a story and not fast paced but the character development in the story really made the story move along nicely and while there was a few times I was bored I never felt compelled to put the book down and not continue reading. I still wanted to know what happened to Ren’s sister and how the story would ultimately play out. I didn’t see the ending coming and for me was a good resolution. If you like literary fiction and in particular Japanese literary fiction this is definitely one to consider picking up.I was lucky enough to receive an audiobook copy through LibraryThing early reviewers and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Keiko Ishida has always been so thoughtful and well liked. I didn’t think anyone could hate her enough to kill her in such a gruesome way. Or was I wrong about her? If I had made an effort to understand my sister, could I have changed her fate?It was too late for these questions to matter. Keiko Ishida had fallen into an irreversible sleep. Even a tsunami couldn’t wake her from her eternal dream.A subtle and quiet book set in Japan, Rainbirds opens with Ren Ishida in a car, clutching an urn, inside of which were the ashes of his 33-year-old sister, who was murdered, stabbed in the small town of Akakawa.Keiko Ishida worked as a cram school teacher in Akakawa and Ren, who also studied the same subjects as her, takes over her teaching position temporarily and even resides in the same small room. He slowly begins to find out more about the life of his sister, whom he hadn’t seen in seven years and who was several years older than him. There was always a hint of the melancholic about her.My sister didn’t seem to hear me. Looking out the window, she said, “Remember this, Ren. Sadness alone can’t harm anyone. It’s what you do when you’re sad that can hurt you and those around you.”Rainbirds may open with a murder but it isn’t exactly a whodunnit. The author doesn’t rush into details or push suspects into view or leave red herrings. Instead it’s a gentle and strange wander into life in this small town, as he meets Keiko’s colleagues, landlord, and strikes up friendships. Among all this are strange dreams that Ren has, dreams he cannot forget and which haunt him.Rainbirds is an unusual read. I came into it knowing that the author lives in Singapore, is originally from Indonesia, and has set this book in Japan. But I didn’t know what to expect from this debut novel. So I was intrigued to find the prose had a Japanese flair, the pace gentle but with a good rhythm, and the secrets aplenty and waiting to be unraveled.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book shed a very interesting light on one family members personal experience after the murder of his sister. It was one part self-discovery and another murder mystery. You meet many interesting characters that all have complex dynamics and in then teach us more about Ren. Despite being written in English, the book has a feel of authentic Japanese culture and felt like it was translated at times. I enjoyed the flawed nature of Ren and how it made you learn and think more critically about the story. We never knew more than he did, allowing us to speculate but also criticize his lack of insight at times. Only criticism was some lack of information but I feel that might have also been part of the story and writing style.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First of all -- that cover! Sure to be my favorite of the year. The story itself, while not as favored as the cover, was respectable, especially for a debut. I enjoy reading books that take place in Japan. There is an underlying darkness here as in others I have read, a quiet and steady flow to it. Even when the main character finds out who it was that likely murdered his sister, he remains calm and even polite. While he temporarily moves to his sister's town to wrap up her life as it were, he meets most of the people she had contact with and puts together the puzzle of her existence. Strange that he gets offered his sister's job, and takes it, and also is offered to take over her living arrangement with a local politician and his wife, and does that as well. He is a first-time teacher and struggles with some feelings for one of his students, and I thought this was handled very well.I would have enjoyed this more were it not interrupted repeatedly by reports of the dreams he had. Hearing about characters' dreams always -- always -- turns me off immediately and makes me think of fantasies. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel this way? It detracts from the story's purpose and it's flow, in my opinion. If you need to convey the character's inner struggles, show me any other way but with dreams.Very thankful to have won the audio CDs from LibraryThing.com. I don't do CDs so I downloaded the audio from Hoopla and it was quite good, and again, a very quiet atmosphere was maintained throughout.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rainbirds is lovely. With simple, atmospheric storytelling, Ren Ishida’s story unfolds as he begins to inhabit his sister’s life, trying to discover who murdered her. The plot slowly proves more character-driven than suspenseful, but secrets, memories, and dreams mingle for an enjoyable BOTM selection.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 There is something so distinctive about Japanese novels. The spare writing for one, not that there are no descriptions, but only as much as the reader needs to know for the story, no words wasted. The unemotional tone to the writing, for another, yet one can feel the emotions brimming under a veneer of formal manners and respectability. Ren is a young man who is basically following in his elder sisters footsteps, almost done with his degree when his sister is murdered. Putting everything else on hold, he travels to the town where she had been living, where he finds once again he is following his sisters footsteps. Living in the same place, taking a temporary job teaching at the school she taught. This is a very tightly controlled story, but not one without some ominious and surprising happenings. As he tries to put everything together, it will lead back to revelations in his own family.Ren himself will find himself sorely tested when one of his students tries to take her crush on him too far.I enjoyed this, although I like many different kinds of writing, it is nice to read something a little different. Learning something too about the differences in cultures and mores. Thought this was quite well done, and the cover is gorgeous as well.ARC from Edelweiss.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rainbirds is quite different in style and tone than most of the books I have read. I cannot recall reading any contemporary fiction by a Japanese author – that doesn’t mean that I haven’t, it just means I cannot remember. I do read quite a few books in a year. I’ve read historical fiction books by Japanese authors/that take place in Japan but the issues and the times were much different.Ren is a young man just finishing up his graduate education when he receives a phone call that none of us would ever want to receive: his sister is dead and her death was due to murder. His world, to say the least implodes. His sister cared for him as a child since his parents were always fighting. One day she left the house suddenly and moved to a small town. They kept in regular touch by phone.He decides after talking to the police in the town to remain. In fact, he not only remains he almost inhabits her life. He takes what was her job, he moves into what was her room. As he seeks answers he only finds more questions and he learns that he really didn’t know his sister at all.From the opening page there was a feeling of heaviness that hangs over the tale. As Ren tries to find out why someone would so brutally murder a sister he thought he knew well but as he tried to help the police he realizes that his knowledge of her life was superficial at best. He didn’t know why she moved to the small town from Tokyo. He didn’t know if she had a boyfriend. He talked to her once a week on the phone and that was it.He settles into his new/her old life and he tries to learn what he can. As the story unfolds it flashes back to their life before she left home or to incidences from Ren’s life to help illuminate different bits of the tale. Ren is not always a likable guy – in fact, he really does not treat the women in his life very well at all. This includes his sister and the woman he is currently dating as well as some others from his past. He seems to see them as being there to be of service to him rather than any relationships to be reciprocal. He has a lot to learn in how he manages his relationships.As Ren searches for answers about his sister’s death he learns some things he doesn’t like but he comes to terms with a side of her he did not know nor understand. It ends up teaching him about himself.This is the kind of book that pulls you along and then something happens that makes you think. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. There are a number of negative behaviours going on in this tale – some belong to Ren as I mentioned above. others belong to ancillary characters. Some make sense within the story others I still wonder why they were included.All that being written I found the book quite compelling and thought provoking. It stayed with me for several days afterward. The presence of such flawed characters certainly makes for interesting reading and the ending leaves a certain hope for the future. Not all is resolved and that uncertainty does also leave the reader a bit off balance. It’s a book for this current time I believe.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When the news of his beloved sister’s death reaches Ren, he hurries to the small town of Akakawa where she had been worked as a teacher for the last couple of years. The police do not have many cues about the young woman’s crucial death, she fell victim to a merciless murderer and was heavily mutilated. Ren starts to ask questions himself, first the landlord where his sister had stayed and with whom she seemed to have had quite a delicate agreement. But also at her work place, there are interesting people who might know more than they would admit at first. In his dreams, Ren is haunted by a young girl with pigtails who obviously wants to tell him something, but he needs time to understand the girl’s message.Clarissa Goenawan’s novel is set in 1990s in rural Japan and thus the atmosphere is far from the Tokyo rush that you might have in mind when thinking about young people on the Asian island. The plot moves at a moderate pace; modern media simply does not exist so people need to talk to each other to get information or to – very conventionally – send letters. Even though the motive that drives the action is an unsolved murder case, the novel is far from being a real crime novel. It is much more about the brother’s loss, a rather dysfunctional family (or rather: families since none of the families presented can be considered functional in any way) and in a way also about love or different kinds of love. It is a quite melancholy book with some rather dark and even mystical aspects.I felt sorry for the young protagonist most of the time. He is quite lonely and now with his beloved sister gone, he got nobody to rely on anymore. His childhood memories were quite depressing and it is a wonder that from what he and his sister experienced they didn’t develop any serious mental illness. There is something intriguing about the other characters, too, albeit I assume that this is also stemming from the fact that they are portrayed in a fairly typical Japanese way, eccentric to some extent, which is rather unknown or unusual for Europeans. What I found quite interesting is the fact that the writer herself isn’t Japanese, but for me, her novel is thoroughly Japanese concerning the atmosphere and the characters.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ren Ishida is stunned when he learns of his sister Keiko’s murder. He leaves Tokyo and his studies to travel to Akakawa to wrap up his sister’s affairs. Events lead to his taking over his sister’s job as a teacher and moving into her room in a rich politician’s home, taking over Keiko’s arrangement of reading to his housebound wife. As he delves into his sister’s life in Akakawa, he learns that she hid many things from him. This book is peopled with many interesting characters and has a haunted feeling about it that’s very Japanese. There is beauty to be found in this book and when I first started reading it, I thought I would love it. But the more of it I read, the less enchanted I became. There are far too many things that happen in this book that I felt were just unrealistic, which kept pulling me out of the story. And while it’s certainly mostly a book about this young man’s journey into the past to work out his relationship with his sister, I felt far too much room was given to his callous exploits with women. While I understood the connection the author was making, I can’t say I enjoyed those sections at all.I’ve loved most of the Japanese authors that I’ve read and wish I could have like this one more. It had promise and such a good start but I felt that it fell a bit short. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it and I do hope to read more of the author’s work in the future because I believe she has talent. This is her first novel and she’s received awards for her short stories. But I was ultimately left feeling a bit flat by the end of the story.This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Just when Ren Ishida is finishing grad school, his older sister Keiko is murdered. They haven’t seen each other in a long time, but they talk on the phone every week. She has been living in a small town for years and he knows little of her life there. Ren goes to the town to arrange her funeral and take care of her unfinished business. Their parents do not show up; they have been absent as parents for most of Ren’s life, with Keiko pretty much raising him as she went through school. The police have no leads; indeed, the police play little part in the story. This is Ren’s exploration of his late sister’s life- he immerses himself in her life, taking over her job as an English instructor at a cram school, and renting her old room in a politician’s house. He learns something about how her life was led by performing the same functions as she did. He also finds little clues in odd places, as well as having dreams about a small child who wants him to figure out who she is. The story has a blue mood cast over everything, even in more upbeat moments. The writing reminds me of Haruki Murakami, with bits of magical realism thrown into Ren’s voyage of discovery about both his sister and himself. Despite the down mood, I couldn’t put the book down. There are some things that could have been better, but it’s the author’s first novel. Four and a half stars.