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This trio of short stories were wonderfully weird. A girl who's parents run an orphanage obsessed over a diver and mistreats a baby, a woman who's sister is pregnant cooks her jam that might be affecting the baby's DNA, and a dying dormitory manager might have been involved in a students dissapearance--or maybe the woman suspecting him is just bored.

The pup and I are trying enjoy some of this gorgeous spring weather 🩵

The characters in these three novellas are cruel, their evil impulses nauseating. Ogawa‘s prose is distanced but poetic. She uses metaphors such as water, snow or food. I agree with Joanna Briscoe: “To read Yoko Ogawa is to enter a dreamlike state tinged with nightmare.” Original and eerie.

"The shoppers passed by, baskets in hand, as if bobbing along on a stream of groceries. It occurred to me that almost everything in the store was edible, and this seemed a bit sinister."
-"Pregnancy Diary"

Very odd, no idea what was going on but I loved the weirdness, the vivid sensory descriptions and the disturbing but completely believable consequences of jealousy, love and boredom.

I‘m a sucker for Japanese fiction so I was eager to discover this new to me author. I started with this book, consisting of three novellas. They are weird and horrible things happen, described with a complete lack of emotion. This may be the point of these novellas but to me it made them too flat and empty.

It's clear that I've found my new favourite author. This is the third book I've read by Yoko Ogawa and I've enjoyed everyone. Ogawa is a beautifully simplistic story teller and these three short stories are dark but certainly worth a read - 4 stars.

See my full review on my blog using the link on my profile 📚

A haunting and quick novella collection!

#maybookflowers Day 8 #bodyofwater or rather bodies of water: the sea, a river, a pool. @RealLifeReading

#aprilbookshowers day 7: #womenintranslation
I may have a bit of an obsession with Yoko Ogawa

This didn't completely float my boat. Yoko Ogawa can definitely write and conjure pictures in your mind. It was more the content of the stories that didn't work for me. The first novella, I couldn't stand the sociopath main character - she was loathsome. The second novella, the pregnant sister was unbearable. The third novella had the most promise, but then the ending was just a weird.

I'm stepping outside my comfort zone with this book. It is three very literary novellas. We'll see how I like it.....