I want to preface this by saying this is by no means a hate rant. I didn’t hate the book, I quite enjoyed it actually. It’s just the ending that makes me confused, so I would like to hear what other people think about it to see if I missed something/interpreted something wrong.
I’ve seen people praise the ending of this book so much that I was expecting to be completely blown away, but I personally feel like the ending makes the entire situation in the book unnecessary. Yasuko killed her abusive ex-husband, Togashi, because he started beating her daughter. Surely if she had turned herself in, she wouldn’t have been accused of first degree murder, but of killing in self defence and she would have received a reduced punishment. But when Ishigami stepped in to help her hide the body, why not do just that? Why create such a complex plan to kill another man to pass as Togashi and then leave him in the middle of the street for police to find and suspect Yasuko instantly. Nobody knew Yasuko met Togashi that night, so if he went missing nobody would have a reason to suspect her – not to mention I don’t think anyone would really be looking for him anyway (that is if there isn’t something I’ve missed, but he didn’t seem like the type of person to be that close to somebody). If his body had been found after a long time it would have been too difficult to establish the exact time of death and also establish his identity most likely, so again no reason to suspect Yasuko. And surely a man like that had other enemies in his life, why suspect only his ex-wife.
All Ishigami did with his genius plan was bring the attention on Yasuko from the very beginning. If he had just stopped at what he did to Togashi’s body, cutting it in 6 parts and throwing them in the river, I feel like it would have taken so long to find him and identify him, that by that time nobody would have a reason to suspect Yasuko. The ending confuses me because I feel like this whole situation was just over the top and unnecessary. A simpler plan would have worked better in my opinion.
What are your thoughts on this ending?
by Wonderful-Elk5080