{"id":503,"date":"2008-01-21T12:38:52","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T17:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/503"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:37:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:37:32","slug":"zen-attitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/503","title":{"rendered":"Zen Attitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zen Attitude<\/em> (1997) Sujata Massey<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Zen<\/a>It’s not that this wasn’t a good story–it was. And it’s not that the characters weren’t vivid–they were. And it’s not like the writing wasn’t strong–it was. But there was something I just can’t put my finger on… missing from the story. Possibly the fact that the cover reads “A Novel of Suspense.” It was an interesting story and a good mystery, but I didn’t find it very suspensful.<\/p>\n

Rei Shimura is a Japanese American antiques dealer currently living in Tokyo with her boyfriend Hugh, a Scottish businessman. When a simple purchase of an antique chest goes wrong. Rei ends up involved in a complex and confusing murder cases, and making friends with unlikely of individuals. The arrival of Hugh’s brother serves only to make Rei’s live more confusing.<\/p>\n

However, this is the second book in the series, so what I may also have been missing is the character development that occurred in the first book. Which doesn’t make this a bad book, it just makes it slightly less strong.<\/p>\n

And there were plenty of strong points to the story. The setting in Japan was fascinating. The mystery was complex and the main characters were interesting. I particularly liked her mentor Mr. Ishada, and wish she would have spent more time with him than with Hugh and Angus.<\/p>\n

But there were also weak points. Angus was very annoying, and I did not understand his relationship with Hugh. I have a sibling, so my feeling was that the story was written by someone who didn’t, in fact, have a sibling. Additionally, Sujata Massey’s use of pop references made the story feel more dated than it should have.<\/p>\n

But despite those weaknesses, it was an interesting story, and an enjoyable one, even if I didn’t find it as suspenseful as the cover intimated it would be. I’ll most likely pick the next book in the series, though not right this second. I also don’t think I’ll suggest this for my grandmother, as there was a fair amount of boinking.
\nRating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zen Attitude (1997) Sujata Massey It’s not that this wasn’t a good story–it was. And it’s not that the characters weren’t vivid–they were. And it’s not like the writing wasn’t strong–it was. But there was something I just can’t put my finger on… missing from the story. Possibly the fact that the cover reads “A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mystery","category-paper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-87","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":920,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/920","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":0},"title":"Dead Lagoon","author":"Michelle","date":"January 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Dead Lagoon (1994) Michael Dibdbin Aurelio Zen is a Criminalpol police officer who has wrangled his way to Venice in search of a case so he can cover his real pretext for being in Venice--to reopen a missing persons file because the family is offering him large sums of money\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"dead_lagoon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/dead_lagoon.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5607,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5607","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":1},"title":"Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf (2014) Terry Newman I started this months ago, wasn't in the mood for it, and then picked it up again when I needed something different. 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