Status Updates From Inside and Other Short Fict...

pdf, mấy cuốn tổng hợp truyện ngắn của các tác giả Nhật nhiều như nấm mọc và ít cuốn nào nổi bật hẳn.

overall, 3.75 ★

The Shadow of the Orchid, Nobuko Takagi (tr. Avery Fischer Udagawa), 4 ★

I love subtle writing. The emotions bubbling throughout the narrative, the "show, don't tell" aspect, the way every action and thought is carefully thought of by the author...and Takagi executed it beautifully in this story of a woman's spiral after her doctor husband brought home orchids from a dead female patient. Tragic but hopeful ending.

The Unfertilized Egg, Junko Hasegawa (tr. Philip Price), 3.75 ★

A woman has recurring nightmares of eggs while she reels over her affair with a married man breaking apart. This was an interesting read. Hasegawa can definitely write, but this story just wasn't anything special. It discusses society's mistreatment of unmarried women in their 30s. The story was just too predictable and a bit boring for me.

Fiesta, Amy Yamada (tr. Philip Price), 3.5 ★

Inside Out but the emotions are actually really fucking hateful and ugly. This story is narrated by Desire, which is the personification of the desires of a working woman with an unrequited crush on her coworker. This was edgy and terrible, as expected from Amy Yamada. She portrays the darkness in human nature in such a scathing yet precise way. TW for sexual assault

Her Room, Chiya Fujino (tr. Cathy Layne), 4.25 ★

A woman meets an acquaintance and finds her presence increasingly uncomfortable and irritating. This was a suffocating read, but god is it relatable. I'm a chronic people pleaser so this hits too close to home. Fujino's writing packs a punch. Her writing is simple, but it delivers the tense and discordant relationship between the two main characters well.

My Son's Lips, Shungiku Uchida (tr. Cathy Layne), 4 ★

A dizzying, peculiar tale of a working woman who gets into an awkward situation with a cab driver and his wife. The narrative of My Son's Lips has a dream-like quality to it, while still being very grounded in realism. The events that unfold are weird, but they are neither unbelievable nor fantastical. I love Uchida's trippy writing. The ending is hella weird

Changing my ratings:

Milk -> 3.25 ⭐️
Inside -> 3.75 ⭐️
Piss -> 3.5 ⭐️

Piss, Yuzuki Muroi (tr. Hisako Ifshin & Leza Lowitz), 3.5 ⭐️

On one hand, Piss is trauma porn. It feels like it was written to evoke emotions in readers by putting the main character's life through hell. On the other hand, Muroi writes loneliness and the despair that comes with it in an intimately personal way. It makes me wonder what Muroi's intention was with Piss. TW: sexual & physical assault, piss kink

Inside, Rio Shimamoto (tr. Avery Fischer Udagawa), 3.75 ⭐️

In Inside, a girl deals with her loneliness at home as her parents seem strangely distant. Shimamoto captures the loneliness of the narrator in a very subtle yet intimate way. The TV is a bit too loud, the father's ignorance of his daughter's presence, the letters hidden behind books on a shelf; the loneliness is conveyed without directly discussing it.

Milk, Tamaki Daido (tr. Louise Heal Kawai), 3.5 ⭐️

Daido's portrayal of a teenage girl named Komugi dealing with her friendships, sexuality, and her fear and dread of her ambition-less future was spot on. It was edgy, but it was accurate. A lot of teens and young adults go through life with apathy and detachment. But edginess has fatal flaw: it's just really boring to read about. Or, like, whatever I guess.