The whole ride through this book left me with mixed feelings. Some parts I found quite enjoyable to read, others I didn't. As a result, my experience with this one was not outstanding & I didn't really enjoy it either...hence a low rating (a 2.5!)for a Kawakami book :((....

After reading Kawakami's 2 other books, which I felt enthusiastic about, I thought it was time to read her most popular one. The concept was promising to me. Promise was here to stay, as all the surprising topics were covered in this! This made reading this book a little more bearable for me. Mieko writes about the pressing questions women face in Japan. You get interesting views on artificial insemination, beauty ideals and perceptions on how women should function in a family in Japan. This made the 'breasts and eggs' book a learning experience for me anyway, to see what perspectives another culture has on these topics. So from this, you can easily & quickly deduce that it was primarily a feminist story. What I also found a strength about the book was that these topics wrapped themselves into a real storyline. People nowadays much prefer to read (including me 🙋🏼‍♀️) fiction stories rather than biographies or informative books. Thus, in a nutshell, Mieko has made the feminist perspective in Japan accessible. As a result, you certainly don't feel like you are thus reading something heavy. I am also still a very big fan of how Japanese authors sketch a setting. Very tangible and above all extraordinarily "ordinary". I always feel a bit at home because it gives a cosy feeling. Always very simple, but lively! One small note I would like to add here is that I have the impression that a lot of people are still missing a topic from this book, namely mourning. I think the grieving process of our main character Natsuko & character Aizawa is also a big part of the story and how they deal with it. I haven't seen or read it yet in other people's reviews that they had taken this from this story as well. I also found this an interesting twist in the book.

Still, I bumped into quite a few sticking points in her book. For instance, I felt the story was very unbalanced. For starters, the book is divided into 'book one' & 'book two'. The reason why she made 2 'books' where actually the same character is featured and it is actually a continuous story is something that I don't understand. I also felt that the ending of 'book one' stopped rather abruptly. I had an urge to know how things ended up with Midoriko and Makiko's struggles. The book was therefore fairly chaotic in my opinion. It seemed like you were being dragged from one side to the other. Closely, I also very often did not find the courage to end the book and pick it up again. Several times I considered leaving it and picking it back up later, but I couldn't do it out of curiosity. Also somewhere a bit out of hope that it was still going to be good. So I was not able to enjoy it to the full.

So for me in conclusion, the book really had the potential to get in with me, at least it didn't. In the end, then, I do recommend Mieko's other books & definitely worth reading!