This book is written by the same author as In the Miso Soup so I had to read it! I missed Miso Soup’s weirdness, suspense, and creepiness so I was anxious for something to fill that void in my little book loving heart. Did this book succeed?

This novel focuses on Aoyama, seven years after his wife died of cancer. He’s eating breakfast with his teenage son one morning when he’s asked about why he doesn’t start dating someone. Aoyama is caught off guard by his child’s question as it’s not something he has given much thought to.

Later that day he is speaking to his friend Yoshikawa who is listening to his woes. He’d like to date but he wants a woman who is attractive, and interested in classical arts such as opera and ballet, someone who is refined. The problem is, he doesn’t know how to find someone who ticks all of those boxes. Yoshikawa suggests that they put an advertisement on the radio looking for this type of woman. The plan they devise is to pretend that they are looking for a woman to play a leading role in a romantic movie. The advert states that the woman should have a background in classical arts to allow her to identify with the leading character.

A few days later they begin to sift through the applications and the narrow them down to twenty, mainly based on the photograph each woman included with their resume, but also based on some background information. These women are called in for interviews.

A specific woman named Yamasaki catches Aoyama’s eye when he sees her application and he can’t stop thinking about her, this intensifies during her interview. In her application she explained how she participated in ballet when she was younger but had to stop due to a hip injury, this upset her so much she compared it to “accepting death”. Aoyama is captivated by this raw emotion and openness and decides that she is definitely the girl he wants to date.

Aoyama calls Yamasaki to meet for lunch a few days later, she happily accepts. The more Aoyama learns about her life, the more he adores her and the more he wants to marry her, but things take a step in the wrong directly after they spend the weekend together.

Back to my question at the start, did this book sate my hunger for more Miso Soup? No.

This book is just over 200 pages long, nothing happened until around page 180. The first three quarters of the book is just Aoyama and Yamasaki going on dates, no suspense, no weirdness. Honestly, if I didn’t know who the author of this book was I would have spent the first 75% of the book thinking I was reading a “slice of life” type novel. I know I am comparing this to Miso Soup, and maybe I should be, but in Miso Soup the author build suspense by making Frank a liar. In one moment he talking about how he grew up in a city apartment where he was the oldest sibling and had three younger sisters, the next minute he’s talking about playing baseball in a field next to the farm where he lived with his brothers, obvious lies and deceit. In Audition the only attempt at this is when Yamasaki is talking about going to family restaurants as a child, then during the next date she admits that this was a lie and her parents weren’t together when she was younger, she had pretended to have a “normal” childhood for the sake of fitting in. That’s it. No lies and backing that leaves the reader confused and in suspense, no areas where you’re wondering is any of what she says actually the truth, no sections that left me dying to find out more about her, nothing.

The ending felt rushed and didn’t make much sense to me. I can’t say much about this point without spoiling the story, so I’ll have to be vague but the reason gives for why the antagonist does what they do to people just made no sense to me, I just felt that the author tried to stop the ending from being obvious so they just made it obscure rather than clever. I am aware that this author is known to push boundaries and have no limits, but the gore at the end just felt added in for the sake of it rather than serving any actual purpose for the story. Also, as a warning to animal lovers like myself, there is graphic animal abuse towards the end of the book.

I would not recommend this book to fans of In the Miso Soup as it is not comparable in any positive way. I feel that if this was the first book I had read by Ryo Murakami I would not have given him a second chance, however I will try reading more of his books in the hope that this one is a weak link. If, however, this book is one that you are interested in then it’s worth reading as it is only 200 or so pages long so it can be easily read in a day so even if you dislike it it won’t take up too much of your time.