Two titles on the list that jumped out at me:
Hopscotch. Man alive! My book club decided to read this, and I gave it the old college try but it was the worst combination of dense and not interesting. Nothing I read made me even vaguely curious enough to keep going.
Out. What? It’s a contemporary murder mystery, in a gritty style. I can’t even figure out if it’s on the list for writing style or disturbing subject matter. Yes, it’s about A MURDER, but it didn’t strike me as any more graphic or terrible than usual. I would recommend it; it was interesting to me because 1. it dealt with more of the emotional toll on the people involved as opposed to the process of solving the case (although that’s part of it, too) and 2. I was curious about how a Japanese author approaches a murder story.
(I read the English translation, so I guess it’s possible that the original Japanese is somehow more shocking or difficult.)