Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful and entertaining
Review: I was entertained and drawn into the very dark and bizzar world these "fine" ladies found themselves a part of from the very beginning. I loved the way Kirino took a lot of twists and turns through out the book making me say to myself..."I can't believe what just happened" .. I don't think I have read anything with this much characture in along time.
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Summary: Night shift noir
Review: Masako, Yayoi, Yoshie, and Kumiko work the night shift at a boxed lunch factory in a characterless Tokyo suburb. Each has her reason for working at night and earning a little extra money: Masako's husband and son have grown so distant that she finds it less painful to be away from them as much as possible. Yayoi has small children and a spendthrift husband. Widowed Yoshie cares for an invalid mother-in-law and a teen daughter in the throes of rebellion, and young Kumiko's taste for luxury has put her deep in debt. They are ordinary women living in a dull suburb with boring jobs and dead-end lives who manage to find the gallows humor in their situation.. Yet before Out is over, one of them will have murdered her husband, two will embark on a sickening business venture, and one will be dead. Author Natsuo Kirino won Japan's top mystery award for this novel, which smashes the perception of Japan as a society of either anal, work-focused drones or trendy Ginza teens. These women live surprisingly close to the underworld, and they find that violence and seedy glamour are closer than they think. "Out" is dark, violent, and psychologically astute--the very definition of noir. This is Kirino's first book to appear in English, and apparently her other award-winner will be published in English soon. This novel is highly recommended for readers who like to explore the dark side of a different culture.
Rating: 
Summary: noirish thriller with a unique setting
Review: Natsuo Kirino has been hailed as the `Queen of Japanese Crime'. Out, her first book to be translated into English, is the story of four women who work the night shift at a factory making boxed lunches. When the youngest and prettiest of them strangles her husband to death in a fit of rage, the women all rally around their friend. They decide to cut up the pieces of the dead body and dispose it off in bags around Tokyo. This sets up the scenes for a grisly and deeply disturbing tale that reveals the underbelly of Tokyo. Out is a harsh and gritty novel, as the graphic cover suggests.
Out has been made into a successful apanese film, and a hollywood version is to be directed by Nakato hideo, the original director of "The Ring"
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but is tis a Mystery Novel ?
Review: No need for me to give the short summary of the book again, others have done a great job doing that for me. I've enjoyed the book, that puts the reader into the lives of very believable characters in modern day Japan. It's well written, probably part due a very good translator. But I should make a note about the category the book is put into: a mystery novel. I can not understand this fits into this category. There's nothing of a mystery in this book. Everything is either obviously predictable, or just plain written before it happens. Nowhere in its 360 pages have I ever wondered "Mmmmm, what would happen next" or "who would be that misterious man". No, don't expect any suspense, thriller, or mistery. Just a plain, though bloody at some times, story. If you set that expectation, you'll have a lot of satisfaction reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Original and compelling
Review: OUT by Natsuo Kirino (Kodosha, 2003)
OUT is one of those novels that without the award nomination (the Edgar Award for best novel), would never be brought to the attention of the mystery community in the US. The combination of the small press putting out a very very long translated book is often a formula for disaster. It is a tribute to the Edgar committee that they discovered this gem and gave it the recognition it so deserves.
OUT is the story of four women living in the Tokyo suburbs. What they have in common is that they all work the nightshift in a food packaging plant. All have very different but highly troubled lives. Masako Katori, separated from her husband and living with an alienated and troubled son is lonely and bored. Kuniko Jonouchi is in major trouble with loan sharks in that she insists on living well above her means. Yoshie Azuma, a widow stuck into the role of caretaker of an invalid mother-in-law has two troubled daughters and Yayoi Yamamoto living with two small children and saddled with an abusive husband who gambles away what precious little they have. All their lives get overturned when, in a fit of rage, Yayoi strangles her husband and asks Masako to dispose of the body. She agrees and with the help of the others, they must do all they can to avoid suspicion falling on themselves. This proves highly difficult when the loan sharks haunting Kuniko find out the truth.
Natsuo Kirino has written one of the most original works of the year. It is character rich with a plot so clever that in spite of the length, the pacing moves relatively rapidly. This is not a perfect work, however. Too much minutiae tends to get in the way of the story progression. Black humor takes over and might remind some readers of the tale of SWEENEY TODD. A major problem with this otherwise carefully written work is the suboptimal conclusion which is the most unrealistic part of the book and proves to be highly unsatisfying.
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Summary: A very special read!
Review: Satake-San, the most memorable character in the same par as Masako.
...at the end, Masako travels to Kabuki-Cho. A bleak place illuminated by a weak afternoon sun, and faded billboards. Satake-Sans birthplace! Masako yearns to breath in the same air he breathed, to see the same things he did!
Beautifully written.
Rating: 
Summary: Just an old trick
Review: The book is well-translated but the story is predictably boring.
It's so obvious to me that the author is just trying to shock the readers by writing something unusually gruesome. This is just an old trick. Come on! Can you be a little more
original? A bunch of housewives getting together to kill someone and writing about them in gory detail is not creative. This is a novel for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: A Good, but Gruesome Tale
Review: The book was a gift, selected for me because it was an award winning mystgery in Japan and a Staff Pick at our local bookstore. Intelligently written mysteries are a favorite genre of mine, and this book is well-written with good charachter delineations and a plot that quite believeably winds up to its conclusion. It was the first Japanese mystery I have read, and it had the added bonus of giving the reader some good insights into what like is life for those living in, trapped in, the underbelly of Modern Japan. My only hesitation in recommending the book is that it is quite gruesome. At one point, fairly early on, I put the book aside, nont sure if I wanted to go on reading in. But I found myself compelled to go back to it to find out what happened to the characters I had already cared about.
Rating:
Summary: This book will be shared and discussed for some time to come
Review: The story behind OUT is almost as interesting as the novel itself. OUT is the debut novel of Natsuo Kirino; published in 1998 in Japan, and garnering not only awards but also popular accolades, it has only recently seen publication here. Kirino has since gone on to become recognized as Japan's preeminent mystery novelist. Her second novel, SOFT CHEEKS, won the Naoki Prize for literature in 1999 and is scheduled for publication in the United States shortly. Aided by a fine translation by Stephen Snyder, OUT is a dark tale, occasionally relieved by grim humor that transcends cultural differences to tell a riveting story of revenge, betrayal and renewal. OUT revolves around four women working in a food processing factory, preparing box lunches on an assembly line, performing physically challenging and mentally boring work while they struggle to stay financially and emotionally afloat. Masako Katori is perhaps the best off financially of the four, though she shares a household with a husband who is more like a distant brother and an uncommunicative teenage son who is, in his sullen silence, a total stranger. Yayoi Yamamoto is married to Kenji, an abusive layabout who fritters away his wife's salary and their meager savings in a clandestine baccarat room while showering a prostitute with unrequited love. Kuniko Jonouchi is kind of an odd duck in the group, all flash and no substance, living far beyond her means while she uses clothes and makeup as a quick fix for her physical and emotional unattractiveness. Yoshie Azuma, known as "Skipper" at the factory, is the oldest of the four and is perhaps the most trapped by circumstance. A widow, she is the sole support and caregiver of her invalid mother-in-law and poorly dispositioned teenage daughter. The four women are dramatically brought together in a new way when Yamamoto, in a sudden fit of anger, murders Kenji. Yamamoto turns to Katori to dispose of the body. Katori, in turn, seeks the assistance of Azuma in doing so. Jonouchi is brought into the mix when she unexpectedly visits Katori while Katori and Azuma are in the process of preparing Yamamoto's diseased husband's body for disposal. Kirino does not flinch from graphic description, and OUT should by no means be mistaken for a "cozy." Kirino infuses the women with a sense of purpose, and while they bring a varying degree of dedication to the task at hand, each is able to bring enough frustration with her respective situation to the fore to get the job done. It is only Yamamoto, whose act of passion was the catalyst for the conspiracy of concealment, who is ultimately unable to participate in the disposal of the body and who displays the most remorse. Janouchi's poor execution of her task results in Kenji's body --- or at least part of it --- being discovered. Satake, a psychotic mobster and owner of the baccarat club, which Kenji frequented, is suspected of the murder. Satake, although eventually cleared, loses everything and seeks revenge by attempting to target the real killer --- whom he suspects to be Yamamoto. His pursuit results in a catalytic ending that will leave the lives of the four women changed forever. Kirino, as is the case with the best of mystery writers, combines a strong plot with a canny description of contemporary Japanese mores and culture to make this an unforgettable work. While OUT was initially slow to attract literary attention in the United States, the gradual critical attention and word of mouth that it has achieved will undoubtedly result in much-deserved popularity. This is a novel that will be shared, and discussed, for some time to come. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating:
Summary: "OUT" for adventure and something new.
Review: This book rocked.
Which sounds juvenile and simplistic but applies all the same. I was looking for something differant to take me away from the doldrums of January and OUT certainly fit the bill.
The four women who sit central to the storyline inhabit lives of "quiet desperation" and the book chronicles the transition of each into worlds wild and unfamiliar. Some fare better than others.
Without question the coolest aspect of the book is the fact that it outlines a murder committed in a foreign country. A country whose culture is vastly different from ours. This makes the tiniest things new and interesting. Money, home layouts, family relationships are all turned on their head in the unfamiliar terrain of suburban Japan. I loved this and felt like I was experiencing Crime Fiction on a new level. It was great.
As a mystery the plotline is effective and keeps the readers' attentions with unexpected twists and turns. Kirino also manages to make dark and unsympathetic characters compelling. You are repulsed by their crimes yet ache with sympathy for their empty and unrelentingly difficult lives. Obviously we are not talking about CRIME AND PUNISHMENT here. Dostoyevsky can rest easy but OUT is great fun despite the rather bland translation by Stephen Snyder. Tokyo comes alive and if this novel is any indication of Natsuo Kirino's body of work, I for one can't wait for novel #2 to make it's English debut.
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