Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto Alright, this was a reread after some good six years since I first read it. I still didn't like it much but it wasn't as unbearable as last time. I'm not that much familiar with Japanese literature other than manga books, so I wouldn't know if the way the story is told is usual in some Japanese writing style. What really threw me off was the way the characters' motivations were so unclear, it seemed to me that things happened just because (such as strangers inviting the lead character to live with them out of the blue) and were taken like it wasn't a big deal.
Out of the two stories I liked "Moonlight Shadow" better. Even though it was shorter it felt like it had more background and you could really understand the characters' morivations, see the way they were dealing with their own losses, and feel for them till the end of the story.