As romance novels go, this is one of the best Japanese books on the shelves. Keiichiro Hirano's At the End of the Matinee is a book that spans a lot of time and a lot of ground. It is warming, dynamic, and satisfying.

This Japanese romance novel tells the story of two successful people who live very different lives but have found themselves in love. He is a classical guitarist with multiple albums and world tours under his belt. She is a globe-trotting journalist based in France with her American husband.

Both of our protagonists are around the age of forty, and At the End of the Matinee bucks a lot of romance trends with these characters. Their age, work, life situations, backgrounds, are all atypical when it comes to traditional love stories.

This is also one of the few Japanese romance novels written by a man, and with such detail and delicacy to boot. It takes its time and deserves to be enjoyed slowly. A wonderful love story.

Not badly written but also not at all interesting. A predictable and largely unengaging by-the-numbers romance between two rather dull professionals. A melodramatic element is introduced to "spice" things up but the whole thing plays out the way you'd think. Really boring, underwhelming and unmemorable story.

the writing in this book was so simple, yet so profound - i was immediately drawn in. yoko is an extremely easy character to identify with and to understand. moreover, the commentary surrounding the US involvement in the middle east that was made was also intriguing. the simplicity of love between the two characters was also very sweet.

I haven’t been as conflicted about a book recently as I am about “The End of the Matinee”. On one hand, it is a beautifully written (or at least translated) novel. The prose is nice and easy to read with ever scene being incredibly cinematic and easy to visualise. So it makes a lot of sense that the book was turned into a movie. The fact that it is a nice story about true love, serendipity, and how a single moment can change one’s life forever. After all, most of us have this one person that got away for one reason or another. This last fact manages to make the book a very touching page-turner one can read in about a day. Yet, at the same time, it just feels incredibly cheesy and what’s worse, manipulative of the reader’s emotions. There are jut way too many red herrings, way too many coincidences for it to feel real and authentic.

Cut with conflict, internal and external, it's a slow burn of a read watching these highly intrinsic characters have more conversations with themselves than each other. I enjoyed the musical aspect and the idea that how we look at the past is ever-changing. I just wish we had more showing and less telling in regards to the characters' stories, especially with such beautiful writing.

Thank you Amazon Crossing and NG for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

At the End of the Matinee is a unique story about two people that instantly fall in love but then don’t see each other for years. I loved how music was such an important part of the story with Satoshi Makino being a famous guitarist. When he meets Yoko Komino they instantly form a bond but they go years without seeing or talking to each other. The story takes place over years with multiple reunions. Their lives keep drifting apart and coming back together. Can they figure out how to make their love last? Both characters have interesting lives and I enjoyed seeing how their lives progressed throughout the years. At the End of the Matinee is a beautiful story that I definitely recommend.


Thank you Megan Beatie Communications and Amazon Crossing for At the End of the Matinee.

Whether you like or dislike "At the End of the Matinee" is probably going to depend on your expectations coming into it, and on your stance on destiny.

It starts like a romance: after one of the concerts given when he's 38 and celebrating 20 years of professional musical activity, Satoshi Makino, an exceptional classical guitarist, is introduced to Yoko Komine, a highly educated half-Japanese, half-Croatian journalist. They find a deep, life-changing connection right away.

But this isn't, really, a romance. It's a book pondering on the ripple effect of small events, on coincidences, on how the future rewrites our perception of the past, on destiny versus choice. It's mostly a thoughtful book, filled with longing and overt questions of how to handle those small, nagging "what ifs" in life, as well as subtextual questions regarding what it means to be "mature".

A couple of events are on the edge of believability and one really wishes that the main characters would just... talk. And be more clear with each other, avoiding consequences. But then again, perhaps they <i>cannot</i> be more clear, and their circumstances and personalities have set them up for just that situation they're in. In a way almost akin to a Greek tragedy, you cannot help but wish things played out differently and be frustrated that they don't (for the want of a detail), while watching them unfold in perhaps the only way they can.

As the book is about a classical guitarist, I didn't expect to understand many musical references, but Keiichirō Hirano is quite adept at describing music in such a way as to make readers feel it and understand the charm of concerts and the work of a performer.

It's a charming novel, though perhaps not everyone's cup of tea.

<i>Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for offering a free copy in exchange for an honest review.</i>

A professional guitar player and a reporter meet after a concert, and this account follows them for a period of several years as they love their lives.

Okay, my summary isn’t the best, but this is a beautiful book. If you’re looking for a fast-paced book, this isn’t for you; even though the book covers several years, it moves very slowly, which is part of the reason I took so long to finish. However, if you’re willing to take a chance on a dialogue-driven book, this novel is totally worth it.

There are a couple of descriptions that bothered me, like one character, though not maliciously, saying another character was a “half-breed”. The main male character appears to be too obsessive at the beginning. I have no problem with love-at-first sight tropes, but his behavior comes off very stalker-y or something at first. And there’s another character that’s very frustrating that I can’t mention because it would spoil a whole lot.

The writing, however, is wonderful. Dialogue-focused novels are not really my thing, but this book made me forget that for a minute. I hope you decide to give it a chance, too; I definitely don’t regret it.

Thank you so much to NetGalleyand Amazon Crossing for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn’t at all convinced by this romance novel, and in fact became increasingly irritated as the narrative progressed. It tells of the ill-fated relationship between a classical guitarist and a journalist, who, when they meet for the first time, connect immediately and profoundly – and for ever. So far so saccharine. But it seems they are destined to be kept apart - with a bit of help from a jealous personal assistant, in a plot twist that is just so unlikely that I nearly gave up at that point. I just couldn’t understand why this mature experienced couple couldn't simply talk it all through and get it together – instead of sacrificing their lives to some implausible misunderstanding. Platitudes and clichés abound in this book, not least in the descriptions of the women – I thought we had got past the fainting feeble woman longing to melt into their lover’s arms. The characters lack depth, the dialogue is overwritten and the emotions verge on the melodramatic. So anything to like? A few things, to be fair. The protagonist’s musical career is quite well handled, and the journalist’s experiences in Baghdad add some interest. But overall this is not one I can recommend.

I very much enjoyed spending time with this novel. A very calmly written grown-up novel about two people falling in love.

This is my second novel by Keiichirō Hirano and I'm already looking forward to reading the next one. His writing is very precise but still full of warmth. I'm grateful I got to read this ARC.

As someone that grew up playing a classical musical instrument, I was looking forward to this book! I enjoyed the musical references very much and even more so what fascinated me were the characters age brackets. In their 40's with obstacles standing in their way of love. What happens above & beneath the surface is to be told. The trial and error with so much on the line in their relationship was handled ever so delicately.

Now, as beautiful as the style of writing was at times, I also found myself struggling. I love getting to know the characters in a book and I felt like that never quite happened. I can deal with the disconnection between characters and even between them and myself as a reader but it almost felt like it went a little beyond my grasping point.

However, I do have to mention I am new to Japanese Literature and I am always looking for a new doorway to broaden my reading horizons. I know many will enjoy this story entirely so I do recommend it!

I want to thank Megan Beatie / @mbc_books & @amazonpublishing for my copies in return for an honest review!

While not quite as good as the author’s other novel translated to English (the amazing “A Man”) this is a fine novel. Well written, interesting from start to finish and very enjoyable experience overall. The translation is fantastic and flows smoothly. Highly suggested for fans of Japanese literature.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Reflective and poignant study of two star crossed lovers following a brief but impactful meeting. Written in the style of thoughtful and introspective streams of consciousness as they find their way through a life buffeted by chance encounters and external events. Is our fate predetermined or are we masters of our destiny? Immersive and beautifully written.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my ARC in return for my honest review.

Such a gorgeous book!

It's been a while since I've read a contemporary romance/love story between people within my age range. I wished more novels were written this way, equally gripping and heartbreaking. And oh, so beautiful.

The main characters are Satoshi and Yoko, and their story begins at a concert in Paris. I love their deep conversations, the discovery that it's more than just a mutual attraction, and how they navigate through their own emotions as they deal with other people within their environment.

Of course, every epic love story does not always go as planned. A major communication breakdown caused a massive rift between Satoshi and Yoko, and they spent many years apart without fully knowing what actually happened that fateful night. But oh, that reunion! Did I cry? Of course I did!

Have I mentioned that it's a gorgeous book?

Highly recommended!

Many thanks to the publisher, Amazon Crossing, and the author for this ARC. Really, really loved it!

A Japanese classical guitarist and French journalist pursue a relationship via Skype. In the face of trauma and existential anxiety, the two fall in love. When a gut-wrenching miscommunication tears them apart, the reader is left wondering whether they can ever come back together.

The first half of At the End of the Matinee is a lovely romance between two mature adults. I kept waiting for the inevitable twist halfway through the book. The rest of the novel was an agonizing wait for the resolution.

I'm not sure I can bring myself to write a more thorough review, even though the book deserves one.

I love Japanese literature and this book is no exception. It is certainly not an easy genre if you are not used to it, but extremely refined and poetic. This book will make people argue, I think it will be in that category that either you love or hate, like marmite.
I loved the story, so delicate, I loved the intellectual and cultured characters, both as individuals and as a couple, I loved the music references.
What I was less keen on is the problem of incommunicability between the two main characters which leads them on completely different paths from those foreseen at the beginning of the novel.
Without spoilers I just want to say that my eyes welled up when Makino recognizes Yoko in the crowd.
Overall a really good book that leaves me wanting to read the previous one by the same author.
Recommended for Murakami and Yoshimoto lovers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Although At the End of the Matinee shares stylistic and thematic similarities with Keiichirō Hirano's A Man, it makes for a far less intriguing read. At the End of the Matinee lacks the psychological edge that made A Man into such a compelling read. The story and characters of At the End of the Matinee have little depth, and, as the narrative progresses and the storyline veers into melodrama, I found myself growing increasingly frustrated by what I was reading (and disappointed too, considering that—abrupt ending aside—I found A Man to be a good read).
The opening pages of At the End of the Matinee are very reminiscent of the ones from A Man. Readers are informed that the story they are about to read is real and that to "protected their privacy" this unnamed author has "altered" certain details (such as their names). Yet, whereas this 'fiction posing as true story' device fitted A Man (given that the novel adopts a story within a story structure) here it just seemed a half-hearted attempt to make Satoshi and Yoko's story more interesting to the reader. This prologue, after all, has no real impact on the remainder of the narrative.
Set in the mid to late 2000s At the End of the Matinee recounts the love story between Makino, a classic guitarist who as of late has become a wee bit disillusioned by his playing and performances, and Yoko, a journalist daughter of a Japanese mother and a Croatian father, who happens to be a renowned film director. The two are introduced after one of Makino's performances through a friend of Yoko and immediately hit it off. Yoko is however engaged to a generic American man.
Despite the distance between them—Makino is in Japan or on tours that take him all over the world while Yoko, who is based in France, is for a period reporting from Iraq— the two begin an email correspondence. Their connection to and feelings for one another are intensified by their virtual exchanges. Makino believes they are meant to be together so decides to visit Yoko once she is back in France. Their reunion is 'complicated' by Jalila, who was forced to leave Baghdad and is now staying with Yoko. Yoko, who is also dealing with PTSD from her experiences in Iraq, is unwilling to leave Jalila by herself so her relationship with Makino is postponed. It became quite clear that Yoko cared very little for her American fiancée, and he merely functions as a plot device to make Yoko 'unavailable. Makino is also going through a musical crisis of sorts, he feels like he is no longer a musical prodigy and that he does not compare to up-and-coming young musicians. The guy was bland, he is the kind of male protagonist you could expect in a work by Murakami. Yoko, instead, is the kind of female character that was clearly written by a man. Her love for Makino makes her all the "more beautiful" and she "ached to give herself to [him] with total abandon, to dissolve in his arms". After Makino declares himself to her she immediately wants "to marry him and have his child". And we are supposed to believe that a female journalist in the 2000s has never been confronted by an arrogant and or condescending man. Yeah, two days ago a British man, who knew full well that I am Italian, felt the need to tell me about how the rest of Italy views Rome.
Half-way through the novel reaches sky-high levels of miscommunication and I hated how things unfolded. I just did not buy into any of it. It also seemed far too easy to make certain characters into 'bad' eggs make Yoko and Makino's behaviour seem just. And, I am so sick of this kind of clichéd portrayal of women (Yoko with her "unself-conscious beauty", the 'other woman' is vapid and big breasted—a trollop clearly—and the 'jealous' woman whose jealousy knows no bounds).
The story is brimming with platitudes ("Happiness was having someone with whom to share all the everyday experiences") and spirals into soap-opera levels of melodrama. There are attempts to make Makino and Yoko Not Like Other People™ because they talk extensively of literature but I found their comparison to Death In Venice to be both contrived and ill-fitting (also, they do not seem to feel the need to point out that Aschenbach's obsession with Tadzio is...problematic to say the least).
At the End of the Matinee was a vexing read. The story is clichéd, the characters lack depth, the obstacles that keep Yoko and Makino apart were overdone, and I found myself annoyed by almost every single thing I was reading (like having Yoko and Makino be Jalila's 'saviours'....bah!). If you have not read anything by this author I suggest you pick up A Man instead.

3 stars *may change
Trigger warnings: suicide (off-page), death, depression, PTSD, war, Islamophobia

“People think that only the future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing the past. The past can and does change. It’s exquisitely sensitive and delicately balanced.”

Serving as a semi-fictional memoir of the love story between classical guitarist Satoshi Makino and journalist Yoko Komine, At the End of the Matinee is both excruciatingly long and incredibly short.

I'm not very privy to the history behind music and film, so I was expecting that there would be quite a bit in this story I just didn't get. Still, I could not have predicted the paragraphs on paragraphs explaining and giving context behind certain things. It would have made more sense had the fact that this was a memoir been more obvious. Yes, the events are mostly true according to the author (besides obvious changes for privacy), but it only sometimes really read like it. I /know/ memoirs, and I /know/ non-fiction, and this seemed to me like a writing style that could not bear to pick either a conversational memoir-style or a story-telling fictional style. So it did both. It would read to me like any other book and then break off to give the long context behind the Iraq war or the history behind how a fictional movie was made (I think it was fictional, since giving an actual film would expose who this book is about).

I'm gonna gear off into metaphorical territory here, sorry. This book felt like a Thursday. Like 3pm on a Thursday afternoon after having come back from the beach and showered but you can still smell the ocean. Like it's raining outside and you can barely hear the raindrops tapping at your window. Like you're on the verge of falling asleep because all the lights are turned off and you're watching TV. Does that make any sense?

This book felt like forever and like a minute all at the same time. I feel like I flew through it every time I sat down to read — as if events happened in the blink of an eye and we moved on to the next. But then it also felt like an eternity. Finishing it was like running laps for hours and finally being done. It's hard to really describe it.

I find it hard to criticize the characters considering that this is literally about real people. Wouldn't that be weird? They were very...well, human. I can't necessarily blame an author for writing real life exactly how it was, although I must admit that sometimes real life is a bit boring. I wanted a bit more drama in this book — specifically in the last bit. A big end-all show to top it off. I think the genre of "obsessed artist" is so interesting. Watching someone wholly immerse themselves in a passion as they tear themselves apart. This was certainly not that. It's a much more realistic, if dull, showing of what the average artist is. Passionate in what they do but not self-destructive. An accurate retelling, but at what cost?

This was not mind-blowingly amazing. It didn't stop my world nor did it outshine the other books I've read this month. It was good. Definitely not bad. It had charisma and heart behind it but lacked a certain amount of pizzazz.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book, with so much miscommunication that finally led to endless drama between the main characters, 38 years old Satoshi Makino and 40 years old Yoko Komine. Makino, a classical music guitarist encountered by chance Yoko who works as a journalist for the French media outlet RFP. Soon their relationship begins to take shape into more intense online communication through email as Yoko was assigned the job of reporting from Iraq the year of the execution of Saddam Hussein. But it was only the start of the story, as Keichiro Hirano will guide us to see the various miscommunications which hinder the possibility of happiness between Makino and Yoko.

The setting for this novel is quite ambitious, unlike many contemporary Japanese novels which I have read in the past few years. There are scenes that take place in Japan, as the story begins to tell the chance encounter between Makino and Yoko in Tokyo after one of his concerts. It also depicts some scenes during Yoko’s time of reporting from Baghdad when she was assigned the job to report for RFP news, which I should praise for the clarity of factual information and the rendering of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that affected many foreign journalists and military staff after their postings there. In some other parts of the story, we are also taken into Paris and New York as the viewpoints change between Yoko and Makino.

Even though the story is being told from the third-person point of view, I get a sense of reading something of a story that was initially rendered in first-person, then get changed into third-person halfway. As though the narrators are actually Makino and Yoko themselves, but it was then modified to third-person narrative to give a more intense sense of miscommunication between the two. But overall, miscommunication is the main strength of this story. We as the readers are led into thinking that we know what will happen next, only to be told otherwise.

Reading this novel in some ways gives me a similar vibe to reading news or any texts of journalism. There is much factual information that sometimes overrides the main story. In some parts of the story, conversations may dominate the passage, but there are times when the author explains some historical facts or literary criticism in a matter-of-fact way that is far from natural in the way that is commonly used for literary text, such as the way the author portrays the situation of the American invasion of Iraq before Yoko’s posting there or explaining how Bach music was influenced by the Thirty Years War. It is as though the author is afraid that the readers will lose the context, that he begins explaining even though it might come out as unnatural. This is, after all, a rather ambitious novel incorporating many different aspects beyond cultural barriers which render it worth noting as Weltliteratur.

To readers who are unfamiliar with classical music, it might bore them a bit since they will not understand the references. Classical music is central to our characters and forms conversations and bond between Makino and Yoko, that in some ways make me think more that music is a universal language that could transcend across cultural boundaries. That is why I think many people across cultures would undoubtedly feel at home reading this novel, on the condition that they could take the references. The love between Makino and Yoko is a tragic one, since they live in distance with frequent miscommunication caused by the imperfect online bridgings, and it pained me more to discover some parts of myself inside the brief relationship between those two. Overall, I appreciate the carefully curated information that enriched my knowledge through this novel and countless drama that stirred up my emotion, however, I still think there might be something missing in translation from this book, that I’ll reserve my final judgment after watching the film adaptation.

At the End of the Matinee by Hirano Keiichiro is a character-drive contemporary tale of a relationship that has potential, but which struggles to commence due to various misunderstandings and twists of fate. Both Yoko and Makino came across well, and I engaged in their story right from the start. As an amateur musician myself, I enjoyed all the music references and discussions throughout the book, and the translation was deftly handled, the prose flowing beautifully. At the End of the Matinee is a deceptively simple story at first glance, but it has many hidden depths, and I would be glad to read more works by Hirano Keiichiro in the future.