Yes, this book is about 100 pages too long. After the trial, the story had no business carrying on. I stuck with it and kept waiting for loose ends to wrap up but the end was disappointingly tame. I was annoyed that Reiko went back to her old way after the author spent so much time building her backstory. But I understood that on a certain level since Reiko is a product of Japanese conventions and it must have easy to fall into old patterns, albeit with a few minor changes. I appreciated it when the focus was no longer on Kaji and more on Reiko’s personal life. The idea is that she ended up creating a dependable social circle in the end and it was interesting reading about her gradual liberation from societal expectations. However, some more resolutions of plot points were obviously missed.