I LOVED this book so much!!! I'm really good at complaining about books I don't like, but I find it so difficult to talk about the ones I do really like 🥲
The characters in this book were so well-developed. They felt like real people with both positive and negative attributes. If you're someone who likes reading books that are more character-focused, I absolutely recommend this book.
Loved so many conversations this book brought about. Of course, the expectations that come along with growing up--particularly of women. Following or betraying traditional gender roles. How, just because a person has made mistakes in their past, doesn't make them rotten as a whole. I also appreciated the friendship between the women of this book, Miyako and Soyoka, and Momoe and Tokiko (hope that's the right name for her, totally missed the furigana for it if there was furigana for it in the first place). Wish we could've seen more about them, especially from Soyoka and Tokiko's side. The exploration of menopause through Momoe was interesting. I never realized it could so severely impact your life before reading this.
A few somewhat negative things. Finally, while the chapters from Momoe's point of view were refreshing, I wish we got to see a bit more of her honestly.
Despite those gripes I'm still giving it 5 stars because I enjoyed every other part of it besides that, and they are relatively minor things. Am definitely going to go back through Yamamoto Fumio's past works after this.
A delicate Japanese style novel on a typical girl, seaching for her identity, meaning of life and relationship. Not much exaggerated ups and downs in the plot, which is just like our ordinary lives. But the plot is gripping and heart warming. You can find quite a lot of life wisdom and lessons to learn inscribed in the whole story.