Bullet Train: Book Review

I would normally have no qualms recommending or not recommending a book, but this book feels a bit different. Forgive me for going on a tangent to explain this, but I must.

‘Pulp Fiction’ is an extremely famous movie from the last decade and has been always been recommended to me. One day I decided to watch it during dinner, and half an hour through I didn’t understand what was so great about it. Since I had finished eating by then, I decided not to continue watching and my impression of the movie stopped at that point too. Years later however I stopped by a friend and he was watching a movie. I took a glimpse and stayed to watch until the end. I was surprised to learn it was ‘Pulp Fiction’. Since then I realise that certain stories (movie/book) cannot be recommended, it must be enjoyed without any recommendation. The same thing that I would say about this book.

And that is not the only similarity between this book and ‘Pulp Fiction’. Both have wacky characters that have completely unnatural but possible dialogues, and the story is full of murders. They both tell story about criminals paid to kill after all. The difference however this book is set on a high speed train in Japan, a Shinkansen. It is a bit hard to imagine all the scenes happening in a small train and not being noticed, but that is some logic you have to suspend. I guess you can also say it is hard to imagine Yakuza existing, seeing how Japanese are so disciplined and well mannered, but that is something that is just possible.

The characters do stretch the story line with depending on luck (or lack of it) but it is still not that blatant.

Overall a very fast book with quirky characters set in a novel crime scene.

P.s. to be honest, the reason I bought the book was because Brad Pitt is staring in the movie adaptation. Past movies often shows that the ones that have him in it, has an interesting story line. So in a way, he recommended this book.