It was like reading the journals of my future self. I related so much with Natsuko it's not even funny. Everything she says, it felt like either I had thought about it or had argued about it. The pain and suffering of women, patriarchy, the complexity of motherhood, how children are not toys for pastime, children of donors, discovering one's origins etc. It also made me feel unbearably sad and lonely, I don't know for what reason. Maybe the pain and longing she feels for her childhood and the people who died around her. Maybe the regret over lost time. But weirdly, it inspired a renewed passion in me to live. To breathe, to explore, to eat, to read. This book was a masterpiece and I loved all the characters and how fleshed out they were. A must read for people of all genders.

Favourite quotes that I can come back to:

"Before I was even born, I already had everything I needed to have a baby of my own. In some ways, I was even more prepared than I am now. Set up to give birth, before I was even born..."

"That's right," I smiled, nodding. "Hey, it's kinda like we're inside a giant grape."

"Maybe no real change wasn't such a bad thing."

"Sometimes when young men and women are about to go through radiotherapy or chemo, they freeze their sperm or eggs so they can use them later. To give them the option of having kids, once they're better. That's what Noriko did. But then she died, leaving just her eggs. I can't imagine how hard it was for her mother. She was an extremely thoughtful person. She thanked all the doctors and nurses, but when it was just the two of us, she started crying and told me: 'Maybe if I used those eggs, I could have Noriko again."

"Imagine you're at the edge of a forest, right before dawn. There's no one else around, just you. It's still dark, and you have no idea what you're doing there. For whatever reason, you make up your mind to walk straight into the forest. After a little while, you come to a small house. Slowly, you open the door. Inside, you find ten sleeping children. All the children are fast asleep. Now, in that moment, in that small house, there's no joy, no pain, no happiness, no sadness. There's nothing, because all the children are asleep. So what do you do? Wake them up or let them sleep? The choice is yours. If you wake them up, nine children will be happy that you did. They'll smile and thank you. But one won't. You know this, before you wake them up. You know that one child will feel nothing but pain from the moment they open their eyes until they finally die. Every second of that child's life will be more horrible than death itself. You know this in advance. You don't know which child it's going to be, but you know that's going to happen to one of them."

"Aizawa was alive, or at least I thought he was, but if we never saw each other again, if I had seen him for the last time ever, in what sense was he alive?"

"He used to tell me, 'People are strange, Jun. They know nothing lasts forever, but still find time to laugh and cry and get upset, creating things and breaking things apart. But son, these things make life worth living. So don't let anything get you down.' I was just a kid, but I think I knew what he was trying to say."

"What if whenever you're like, whoa, am I gonna die, some substance gets secreted in your brain? Maybe that's what it's like when you're old."