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This book centers around Natsu, her elder sister Makiko and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. The book is about the female body as much as it's about the female mind.
I really liked the characters and how the story was written. The pace was nice too. But, somewhere in between I felt a bit disconnected from the story. A great book but I think it could have been written better. Or the essence was kinda lost during translation.
4/5🌟

🎧Audiobook 💗💗

❤️❤️this book! What are your favorites from this author?

Having read all of Kawakami's novels translated into English (just the novella, Ms. Ice Sandwich, to go), I can say that I'm a big fan. I was surprised by the depth of Breasts and Eggs, the level of scrutiny it employs in dissecting age-old norms taken as human truths. But I shouldn't have been surprised; she does the same in Heaven & All the Lovers in the Night. A book that I'll be thinking about for a long time. Brilliant & uncompromising.

Read the full book, not the novella. It was interesting. Definitely delves into the inner lives of women with an unflinching gaze. Parts were beautiful (eggs cracking over their heads in the kitchen, the ferris wheel scenes). But it was fairly long and I definitely struggled to finish it. A worthwhile read though.

4.5/5 🌟

An interesting and fabulous book about womanhood and motherhood, featuring a number of intriguing characters and diverse points of view. It illustrates that in life, there is no absolute right or wrong; rather, there exists a multitude of perspectives.

"If you want to know how poor somebody was growing up, ask them how many windows they had."

@ShyBookOwl
#FirstLineFridays

No entry for this story in litsy so I‘m tagging another of her novels.

This translated short story is haunting because the depression of the main character is palpable. It feels familiar, those thoughts of death - not so much a longing but a “what if I just died today?” feeling.

She spends her days wandering a department store. Buying, browsing, not really feeling or facing her grief.

It‘s interesting and well written. A pick for sure.

“It feels like I‘m trapped inside my body. It decides when I get hungry and when I‘ll get my period. From birth to death, you have to keep eating and making money just to stay alive. I see what working every night does to my mom. It takes it out of her. But what‘s it all for? Life is hard enough with just one body. Why would anyone ever want to make another one?”

i am literally makiko, midoriko, and natsuko. i am all of them and they are all me.

I read 16 books in July!

I‘ve read more in a month before but it‘s been years. I‘m happy. 😊

Tagged book is my favourite of the month.

I love this so much. I borrowed it through Libby but now I want to buy a copy just so I can hug it.

So don‘t let anything get you down.

Amen!

25th July 2023 🐣

Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator. Saying "I just want to be happy" trumps any other explanation.

This was a very unique read/listen. A story that really departs from the usual descriptions of Japan as being sex obsessed (Murakami, looking at you). It is a contemporary story delving into the various facets of womanhood in Japan. It explores important themes with great sensitivity. It was like reading someone‘s diary. A good, thoughtful read

Has Anyone read "Breasts and eggs" or "Heaven" by Japanese Author Mieko kawakami? What is your first impression of her Writing?

These two stories are narrated by Natsuko, an impoverished writer from a working-class background. Both stories are fascinating explorations of womanhood, especially comparing her experiences and societal barriers with American attitudes and societal norms. I loved her tagged book, but these stories are grittier and drearier. Instead of her novella‘s spare prose, a sprawling 400-pages, with some parts written in a hard-to-translate Osaka dialect.

I struggled with reading this book last year and so I tried it this time on audio. A different time & a different format really helped. I enjoyed Kawakami‘s writing and the character of Natsu and I felt she addressed fertility, sexuality and women‘s life experiences with a directness that was refreshing &, in terms of my reading, unique. I found the novel choppy in parts and I‘m not sure that I always got the point she was trying to make. ⬇️

Translated Japanese fiction exploring what it is to be a woman, a mother, a parent; touching on career crises, financial stalemate and being overlooked in the workplace due to age? Yes please! I didn‘t always “get” some elements of this, but I‘m loving exploring contemporary Japanese women-authored fiction. I love the pared-back writing style. I also have lots of love for this cover.

‘ why is it that people think this is okay? why do people see no harm in having children? they do it with smiles on their faces, as if it‘s not an act of violence. you force this other being into the world, this being than never asked to be born. you do this absurd thing because that‘s what you want for yourself, and that doesn‘t make any sense ‘. 5/5

Tagged book.
(Clive) Barker
Bladerunner
Blondie
Bedshaped (Keane)
#manicmonday #letterb

I liked it but I agree with other reviewers - it's too long. It was apparently a novella that was expanded into a novel, but I think it would work better as two shorter novellas. I liked the first half very much, but the second half dragged until coming back around in the end. It is very much a book about the female experience - for better and (more usually) for worse - in contemporary Japan. It left me with a lot to think about.

Interesting book but, it felt like it's much longer than it actually needed to be.

- 3⭐️

Picked this book because I loved the title and the book cover (and it got a good word from Murakami). But it‘s a great piece of body lit, with all its female protagonists and their inconsistencies/hesitancies about their desires and goals, which I found true to life and refreshingly genuine. It is about messy women trying to navigate messy lives with messy bodies: it all leads to some incredibly poignant moments. Backdrop LP: Sun Ra‘s Disco 3000.

#currentkindledeal

? October 2021
A really good read!
It takes on many subjects which I hadn't really thought about before (artificial insemination, plastic surgery, adoption, birth), so I sometimes had to put the book down and just think what my own opinion was before confronting it to the book.
I would say it's a really "womanly" book, as I've seen many men say that they didn't understand the book…

This book has an extraordinary sense of place, the heat of Tokyo permeating every scene and elucidating moments of real emotional lucidity. It‘s really a book in two halves: a short story about sisterhood and family, and a longer exploration of the themes, set a decade later. As such, there is less a plot than a series of variations on themes, which at times form unexpected, delightful connections, and at times feel repetitive and forced.

.

This took me so long to finish, it‘s definitely a slow burner. There‘s some memorable scenes and interesting views on artificial insemination, motherhood, beauty standards and relationships. The two parts seem so separate, I liked them equally and as stand alones but they didn‘t quite make sense as a novel for me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

"So I look away and try to rid them from my mind. But that only makes it hard to tell if I've escaped my demons or invited them to stay."

I'm joining #LitsySummerCamp this week! I'm off the next two days, so I thought that would make for a good start. Thanks to @ImperfectCJ for hosting this super fun event!

My August #BookSpinBingo picks. A mix of TBR and Book Club Reads. I'm ready for Summer to be over though, so I can focus on my Fall reading!
@TheAromaofBooks

The first section was excellent: a Japanese woman considering whether to get pregnant via IVF on her own has a visit from her sister, who is obsessed with plastic surgery. But the second section, set further in the future about the same family, felt overly long. Worth the read anyway.

I liked this look at gender and sexuality focused on Japanese women. I think some good issues are covered here, but I would have liked to have seen more balance—more of the supporting characters to contrast the main character and more balance around the issues rather then such heavy focus in the second half on decisions about children. It started to feel a bit repetitive by the end.

I LOVED this book! I‘m loving Japanese literature!

Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own. #japaneseliterature #japaneseauthor #japanesebooks

^^p 50, weird dream in the steam of the public baths. Of course Murakami loves this book, same style of dreamscape mashed w/ obsessive, self-absorbed narrator. Homunculi, puberty, laughter, discomfort with sexuality.

P46: nipple hierarchy “Who wants their nipples to be cute or pretty? You‘d think that, in the world of nipples, it‘d be the strong, dark, big ones that would reign supreme. Maybe someday they‘ll have their moment. But probably not.”

It‘s the narrator. The breezy, urgent, unforgiving tone. This is one I would have wanted to read in the original. Translators make it very readable, but where‘s the playful Osaka dialect she keeps referencing? Not that I‘d know how to render it.

Female bodies and INSISTANCE like Ferrante or Cardinal. Money struggles. Family. The shock and the pull of fertility. Such a strong voice, if also hard and clinical. Annoying and unputdownable. 2020

I liked this book but it took me forever to finish, I just never felt compelled to pick it up but I did love all the food talk and seeing a different representation of Japanese society than I typically do. Also got to genius on the Nyt spelling bee without looking up hints! Maybe I‘ll go for queen bee today

Here‘s my #booked2021 first quarter wrap up! I skipped around, as usual, and managed to get through more prompts than I expected, so I‘m quite pleased. 😊 I enjoyed all of them too, except Boca Raton, but at least that one was short. 😅

#SFWrittenByAWoman: The Space Between Worlds
#TranslatedIntoYour1stLanguage: Breasts and Eggs
#HearHere: Just Mercy
#RelatedTo911: The Only Plane in the Sky
#Under150pages: Boca Raton
#LatinxAuthor: Little Eyes

Read the full book, not the novella. It was interesting. Definitely delves into the inner lives of women with an unflinching gaze. Parts were beautiful (eggs cracking over their heads in the kitchen, the ferris wheel scenes). But it was fairly long and I definitely struggled to finish it. A worthwhile read though.

We're going our separate ways, in the tournament 😀. In the #LitsyToB21 Piranesi won against Leave the World Behind (again with a convincing majority), in the official #ToB21 Red Pill was finally kicked out by Breasts and Eggs!

We're almost there, I will annouce our Zombies 🧟‍♀️ later today and another form for voting. The official #ToB21 Zombies are Piranesi and The Vanishing Half, completely different from ours again!

I think I‘ve read 50 pages in the last week. Lately I just cannot find the concentration to sit down and read!!! Trying to park myself here on the side porch and make some progress.. 🥴

Today's match in the #LitsyToB21 was Shuggie against Piranesi. We were very clear in our preference: Piranesi has won with a big majority, only @Cinfhen @Kalalalatja @Hooked_on_books and @cariashley voted for Shuggie. In the offical #ToB21 there was a complete different match: Breasts and Eggs was up to Telephone. Their winner is Breasts and Eggs, @Megabooks you must be so happy with that outcome!

This book took me months to read and yet I kept coming back to it. I liked the way this book examined women‘s relationships with their own bodies and fertility. As a story it was pretty good, but the exploration of the theme is really what makes it. I‘d have liked less mundane detail in parts.