The bestseller status in Japan and Oscar nomination didn’t get me to pick up Kanae Minato’s Confessions; it was the blurb. Blurbs have become something of a joke within the book world: Shteyngart blurbs about a thousand books a year, says he’s retiring, but then you see his quote on another new book. Jennifer Egan blurbs, Sam Lipsyte blurbs, and even Carrie Brownstein has a blurb on the back of Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back. We make fun of the blurb and overlook it because they seem to […]