What’s Left of Me is Yours by Stephanie Scott
Review of What’s Left of Me is Yours by Stephanie Scott
“That afternoon, alone on the floor of my grandfather’s study, looking at those words, I realized that of all the lies we are told, the very best ones are close to the truth.”
What’s Left of Me is Yours by Stephanie Scott (2020). Published by Doubleday Books.
I’d been meaning to read this book ever since it came out, and so when I saw it at the very front of my library, I knew I had to pick it up and read it. I originally remembered the buzz that was around this book, how everyone was raving about the merits of the writing and the plot line, but I was absolutely terrible with reading at the time. I wasn’t reading many books then and now that I’m on a kick, I knew that it was time for me to finally read it.
And boy was this book a time! It’s hard to define it within a single genre, but it is so exciting throughout as well as heartbreaking. It’s based on a real case that happened in Japan during the 1990s, where a woman was murdered by a man who was paid to break her and her husband up. And that’s what this novel’s plot reflects: our narrator’s mother is murdered by a man of the same profession.
I read the entire book in about two-and-a-half hours. I barely put it down because I was fairly invested in the story and the characters. It was really good y’all!
I’ve said enough—let’s dive straight into this review, shall we?
Content
This is a fascinating book for me as someone who is very familiar with Japanese culture, but has never had to interrogate the nuances of the legal system and how women are treated within it. Our main character in this novel is Sumiko, who has been told for her entire life that her mother died in a car accident by her grandfather, the one who ultimately ends up raising her.
But when a suspicious call comes in from the Justice Department in Tokyo, she heads to the police station and discovers the grotesque truth: her mother was murdered by a man hired by her father, one intended to give an excuse to break up the marriage. However, her mother and the man supposedly fall in love, complicating this relationship even further.
Our narrative style shifts as we transition between two periods: the 1990s and the early 2010s, when Sumiko, almost a lawyer now herself, is discovering the truth behind the case. The 1990s portion follows her mother Rina as she meets the man who will end up killing her and falls in love with him. We discover that this man was hired by her husband to initiate the divorce in a way that will favor him legally, but Rina doesn’t know any of this. She thinks it’s true love. And we, as we follow Sumiko in the present day, are forced to confront the damage that this causes.
This is an epic story, spanning decades. It has betrayal, love, and sin its it finest forms. And the writing is absolutely beautiful throughout. I plowed through 150 pages within an hour because I found that it was going so quickly. There were some moments where there was a lull in the plot and the pacing slowed down a bit, but I didn’t mind these moments as much.
It’s insane though once you do the research and discover this was based off of a real occurrence that happened in Japan during the mid-1990s. And that this profession does actually exist in Japanese society, one where people are paid to split up marriages. It’s absolutely insane with this context.
Overall Thoughts
I think this is a really good book! Is it perfect? No, but I found that I learned something from it and took away the themes of uncovering the past in order to come to terms with your present reality. It’s an epic with romance and crime and it’s both highly emotional and moving. I literally can’t believe that this was a debut novel because it was so-well written and laid out for readers. I definitely will be keeping an eye on Stephanie Scott and for what they’ll be publishing next because this was a strong start. You really begin to emphasize with the characters and the story that is uniquely powerful.
