They aren’t allowed to offer condolences, advice, or questions unless the client specifically asks for it. Basically, Shouji and Youko sit down with a client and listen to them say whatever the client wants to share. The story begins when college grad but recently unemployed Shouji Arai is hired by her live-in girlfriend, Youko Sasaki’s bosses as an ear prostitute. It might seem muddy at first, but he dies in the end. Unlike Ren Ishida and Ryusei Yanagi, Shouji Arai does not find closure, nor does he move on and begin anew. In WATERSONG, Clarissa showed us the dark side of being unable to move on and clinging to your past. In her first two books, RAINBIRDS and THE PERFECT WORLD OF MIWAKO SUMIDA, the protagonists and some of the other characters have some troubled pasts, or experienced something traumatic at the beginning of the book and cannot move on easily. Troubled, dark pasts that the characters are trying to move on. This is the running theme of all of Clarissa’s books. On the whole, WATERSONG is a brilliant literary fiction about letting go of your past and moving on. Unfortunately, this came true for her third book. After all, overhyping anything can lead to disappointment. She’s still an all-time favorite author of mine and maybe I expected too much. This is the lowest I’ve ever rated any Clarissa Goenawan book and it breaks my heart but I should honestly review her book.
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