Snakes and Earrings

by Hitomi Kanehara

Book Overview

An underground world. A murder. An international phenomenon. Snakes and Earrings. . . . Describing a world as amoral and fascinating as the landscapes of Less Than Zeroand Trainspotting, this novel about a young woman living in the violent world of Japan?s underground youth culture is both shocking and strangely beautiful.Enchanted by the snake-like tongue of a stranger called Ama, nineteen-year-old Lui takes a walk into another side of life. On the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525948899
• ISBN13: 9780525948896
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent.

I am still in awe. I picked this book up by accident and read it in one day. It's such a raw, sexy, quick read with such interesting characters. Give it a try

Stark but beautiful

This novella deals with the subjects of sadism and the meaning of life, which is as unlikely a pairing as any, but somehow works. I found the story to be utterly odd, definitely explicit and vulgar for much of the 120 pages, but also containing unexpected beauty on every page. I don't think it's fair to make completely black and white assumptions about this edgy book, because it gives one plenty to think on.

Not for the Faint at Heart

Amazing. This book left me flabbergasted, my head feeling like it was just thrown into a toilet bowl, my jaw dropped on my chin, and amazed at everything that just happened. I walked away stunned just as the main character. I read this book in one day, practically from when I picked it up till the evening. It's everyday vernacular and short sentances/paragraphs/sections make it easy to read, easy to swallow, and easy to pause when you need to look away and take a breath, which you will. It is a dark perverse story about a 19 year old Japannese barbie girl, her journey into the world of body modification, and follows the torrid affair between her two lovers. It is gory in the detail, the author does not hide detail. Thank god she doesn't embellish too much either, but it's just enough, and straight forward enough so that there is no confusion as to what is happening. I would reccommend this book to most of my friends, but not to someone who wants a nice soft novel to make their plane ride pass faster. It will rock you, will push your limits of what you are used to, make you question yourself if you were in the situation, and will leave you feeling totally exhuasted at the end of the day. It is a mind f*ck. Not for the faint at heart. I think if you liked books like Geek Love, dark comedies, you will enjoy this book. Though not a comedy (some might laugh), it is definitely on the darker side and hits home to those angsty years we all had in our teens.

Amazing, simply amazing!

The book starts out with the main character, Lui, wanting to get a split tounge. Written from her point-of-view, she goes on to talk about her relationship with her boyfriend Ama, and a tatoo artist named Shiba, and the facination she has with split tounges and tatoos. As the story goes on she becomes more and more depressed with her life and the point of it all. Since she is the one telling the story you can really feel what she is feeling, and it's facinating to see the emotional places she takes you. Throughout the book she continues to put larger studs in her tounge as to prepare it to be split. This ends up being a sort of reference to where she's at physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I won't ruin the ending but I guarentee it will be a suprise and that you will read it more that once. Truly an amazing book, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something a bit different, and something that will remain with you after finishing it.