A nice simple story of emotions and interactions. It's short, maybe a novella. Young woman lives her life in Tokyo. There's a lot of the emotions of death and loneliness and what draws people together. The translation is evident - nowhere near as seamless as Birnbaum's treatment of Murakami's books, for example - but it doesn't really ruin things.

Ms. Yoshimoto released this at age 24 and was immediately covered with accolades in Japan. The volume I have has three pages of rave comments from English sources. I dunno. It was quite good, but not earth-shaking. Probably really good marketing.

Short stories, same genre, but a bit more diverse than the other stuff from Banana. A good place to start if you don't know her work... I probably liked this more than the other two books.

Well, Banana has improved. Here is another novella of personal relationships among broken or unusual family situations and plenty of death or expected death. And, again, her heroine is happy in such situations. The tale here is pretty weak, but you're not supposed to care - it's just a vehicle for a stream of mood and thoughts. This is pulled off pretty well. Also, the translation is better than Kitchen's, which helps a bit.