It's hard for me to summarize what "Kitchen" means to me. Perhaps it's unfair to tie all these personal factors to a review aimed at friends and strangers - in short, those who aren't living inside my brain and biography on a daily basis. Still, I cannot write about this book without even attempting to sketch what it means to me.

Kitchen was gifted to me by a friend of my mother's back when I was too young (thirteen?) to read and understand this book. This is not because the book is hard to read or understand, quite on the contrary in fact, but it is a book that will only start ringing true once you've experienced love and loss in a way that you only start to process when you're older. Also, I was a tiny little thing who loved Japan and anime, and thus a book about a woman and... a kitchen? did not seem very appealling to me.

By now, I'm twenty two as I write this, I've read this book more times than I can count and everytime I do, it feels like I'm reading a new book. If you were to ask me in a month what "Kitchen" is about, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. The plot and writing come down over you like a heavy blanket, envelop, warm and calm you and then, when you feel ready to brave the cold outside world again, they lift off and retreat back into the pages. Continuing with that metaphor, I can say that this book is my comfort blanket. (At this point I need to interject and mention that the writing gets transphobic at times. It's a product of its time and culture, but it thus might not be a comfort-blanket type book for everyone.) It's happened once before that I stood in front of my shelf and asked myself which book I wanted to take with me to the emergency room, unsure of when I'd be back in my flat, or among my loved ones. It was "Kitchen", that I chose without a second thought, and I'm positive I'd choose it again.

To me, the plot of "Kitchen" isn't truly its selling point. Like all of Banana Yoshimoto's books (save for some exceptions), it deals with loss, love, grief and belonging in a delicate and melancholic way. It is slow in its storytelling, pleasant, and when it hurts, it hurts in the best possible way. It's the first book I'll recommend to people, because I feel like there's something in it for everyone (except for those who shrivel up at the thought of a story paced as slowly as this). A while back, I loaned my copy to a friend, who loaned it to another friend. Upon returning it to me, she told me that when she thought of me, she thought of the yellow kitchen from the book. Without even remembering how the kitchen was described, I knew what feeling and atmosphere she was referring to. To this day, it is probably the most heartfelt compliment I have received.