Bullet Train ⭑⭑⭑
Genre: Adrenaline Thriller
US Publication: August 3, 2021
Print: 432 pages
Audio: 13 hours 38 minutes
Confetti Rating: 3 stars
REVIEW:
I wish I could tell you I didn’t choose to read Bullet Train because it’s being adapted into a “major motion picture” starring Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Joey King, and Lady Gaga, but that would be a lie and I wouldn’t do you like that.
The book itself is the translation of an uber-popular Japanese novel originally titled Maria Beetle, in which five assassins board a high-speed train headed to Tokyo and realize their missions might be linked. I’ve heard it compared to the style of Quentin Tarantino movies, and I can see that, but I also kept thinking of 1996 movie “Trainspotting” - not just for the train-name connection but more so for the frenetic pace.
Bullet Train is a thrill ride (too easy?) that I found myself not overly keen to take. The characters are certainly quirky (with names like The Prince, Tangerine and Lemon) and the text seesaws between the depths of the meaning of life and the frivolity of Thomas the Tank Engine. If that sounds weird, it is.
This is a very particular type of adrenaline thriller that perhaps I was just not in the mood to read. Others may enjoy the action more than I did, and if not, you always have the movie that will pull into the station in July 2022. (Sorry, so lame.)
My thanks to Abrams Publishing and the author for providing me with an advance copy to read and review via NetGalley. Bullet Train is now available.
PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:
A dark, satirical thriller by the bestselling Japanese author, following the perilous train ride of five highly motivated assassins — soon to be a major film from Sony.
Nanao, nicknamed Lady Bird — the self-proclaimed “unluckiest assassin in the world” — boards a bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with one simple task: grab a suitcase and get off at the next stop. Unbeknownst to him, the deadly duo Tangerine and Lemon are also after the very same suitcase — and they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Satoshi, “the Prince,” with the looks of an innocent schoolboy and the mind of a viciously cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has history with some of the others. Risk fuels him as does a good philosophical debate . . . like, is killing really wrong? Chasing the Prince is another assassin with a score to settle for the time the Prince casually pushed a young boy off of a roof, leaving him comatose.
When the five assassins discover they are all on the same train, they realize their missions are not as unrelated as they first appear.
A massive bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with an incredible energy and surprising humor as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwind. Award-winning author Kotaro Isaka takes readers on a tension packed journey as the bullet train hurtles toward its final destination. Who will make it off the train alive — and what awaits them at the last stop?