Breasts and Eggs, that’s a title you don’t forget in a hurry.  A title like that has to make You a little curious as to what is hiding within the pages, it certainly piqued my interest.

Sisters Natsu and Makiko have grown up depending on each other, their mother died young and they lived with their grandmother but when she died they supported each other as best they could, working jobs underage to keep a roof over their heads.

Now adults, Makiko is a single parent to twelve year daughter Midoriko.  They have a tempestuous relationship to say the least and currently Midoriko only talks by writing down her questions on a notepad.  Mother and daughter’s relationship is not helped by Makiko’s constant battle with her looks, she works as a bar hostess and is convinced a breast augmentation will get her further in life.

At the start of the book Makiko and Midoriko have travelled during the summer from their home in Osaka to visit Natsu, a struggling writer, in her modest apartment in Tokyo.  As the younger sister Natsu would do anything for her big sister but they are truly polar opposites, Natsu is quiet and reserved whereas Makiko is full of life.  Their few days spent together during this summer show the family at their best and their worst, during time spent at an amusement park and also time spend waiting on a nastily drunk Makiko to come home.  This visit ends with Midoriko putting down her notepad and starting to talk.

The book jumps forward some years and Natsu is now a successful published author, she has some new friends including her editor and a fellow author and she has a new goal in life.  She wants to be a mother.  The second half of the books takes us on Natsu’s journey to realising her dream, as a single woman she decides to go down the donor route but this proves to be a very bumpy journey indeed.  

Breast and Eggs is a book that no matter how hard I try to review I probably can’t do it any justice whatsoever.  I am fascinated by Japanese culture and every time I try a new (to me) Japanese author I learn a little bit more.  The expectations of Japanese women by the older Japanese generation is still quite old fashioned, one of Natsu’s friends is expected to leave her life in Tokyo behind to move to the country as the say so of her poisonous mother in law.  It is always an eye-opener a story like this but its not just a story, I read an interview of Meiko Kawakami and her upbringing seems to have echoed parts of the book.

This is a great story of sisterhood, female friendship and realising that you don’t always have to do what is expected of you.  Please give it a try.

Thanks to Net Galley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.