My copy of this book was positively beautiful. It was printed in 1902 (or so... I don't have the book with me right now...), was used in the Jewish Hospital of Consumptives, and has watermark images behind the text on every page. Sure they repeat, but it was still a very nice touch. It's falling apart, most of the pages aren't actually attached to the cover anymore, or any of the other pages for that matter, but that sorta added to its charm. For an historical context, it's very interesting as well. It references the town of Nagasaki as a small town which no one outside of Japan would recognize, utterly oblivious to the changes that would happen in Japan a half century after it's publication. It spells Korea "Corea" and Clue "Clew", which I loved.
I wasn't quite so impressed with the actual text. The book reads a little like a Greek tragedy and is worse than Romeo and Juliet. Every character is a slave to their own dismal stupidity and get rather tiresome to read about. And the main characters have the worst relationship ever.
It's a little inconsistent in its style, which is never really expert in my opinion, and it's a little inconsistent in its content. Sometimes, Onoto thought to translate a Japanese word or phrase, sometimes she didn't. Often, she chose the second or third appearance of a word to bother translating it and she did so by putting the translation in round brackets (parentheses). Sometimes a character thought one thing, then Onoto would contradict herself in the next paragraph. For what some consider her best work, I was unimpressed.
This is another story which could have really benefited from an editor! I only really finished it to write this review and movie on with my life. The best reason to read it is from a "Historical" perspective, which makes it very fascinating, but you needn't read to the end if that's your purpose.
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