I don’t think I have ever read a book that details women’s bodily experiences in quite the way this one does

This is my first read by Mieko Kawakami, and she takes us on a compelling journey into the lives of three women in the same family: Midoriko, Natsuko, and Makiko.

Midoriko is a teenager who has just gotten her first period, and through her journal entries we see her transition from girlhood into womanhood.

Then there is Natsuko, the narrator, a single woman in her thirties and a struggling writer who has no desire for a romantic or sexual relationship but still finds herself thinking deeply about having a child.

Finally we have Makiko, Midoriko’s mother and Natsuko’s older sister, a single mother who is growing older and struggling with her changing body and the pressure to remain desirable.

These three women are at such different stages of life, and yet their stories are connected through their relationships with one another and, more importantly, through their relationships with their own bodies. Together, they take us through very different stages and experiences of womanhood.

The book is divided into two parts: Breasts and Eggs. The first part explores multiple themes surrounding womanhood, beginning with Midoriko and her transition from girlhood into womanhood.

Through her journal entries, we get an incredibly detailed account of the changes she feels happening within her body. She writes with such excruciating honesty and rawness about the changes happening within her body and the complicated feelings that come with growing up. I don’t think I have ever read a book that details women’s bodily experiences in quite the way this one does. It felt raw, intimate, and incredibly refreshing.

Through Makiko, we see another side of the relationship women can have with their bodies. As she grows older, she becomes increasingly preoccupied with her changing appearance and the pressure to remain desirable. Her obsession with getting breast implants opens up questions about beauty, aging, femininity, and how much of our relationship with our bodies is actually our own.

And then there is Natsuko, who is wrestling with a very different question. She doesn’t necessarily want romantic love or a sexual relationship, but she does want a child. Her thoughts about motherhood become one of the central questions of the second half of the book, and I found this part particularly interesting.

What makes this book even more interesting to me is Kawakami’s writing style. There is something poetic about the way she constructs her sentences and describes things, and somehow she creates these really crisp images as you read along. Her writing made ordinary moments feel strangely vivid, and there were so many occasions when I found myself reading a sentence or a page and then stopping simply because I needed a moment to think about what I had just read.

I think the best books are the ones that stop you mid-track and force you to think about things deeply. This was one of those books for me.

On some occasions, it almost felt like the writing was coming directly from my own mind. I really admire Kawakami’s ability to describe and detail the ordinary female experiences that literature often treats as insignificant, embarrassing, or even disgusting. Some of the descriptions were uncomfortable to read, but I think that discomfort is part of what makes the book so honest. These are realities of women’s lives, and they exist whether we are comfortable talking about them or not.

While reading the book, especially the sections about female biology and the physical experience of being a woman, I remember thinking about my own journaling. Not once in my life have I really written about my experiences as a woman through what I feel in my body. My experiences have always been much more internal and emotional than biological. And that realization really made me stop and think: why have I never paid such deep attention to the things happening within me?

I think that is what this book does so well. It asks difficult questions without necessarily giving us easy answers.

Are all women supposed to want children?

Why do people want to have children?

Is the desire to have children biological, or is it something we learn to desire because society tells us that this is what women are supposed to want?

The second part of the book, Eggs, explores these questions even more deeply. Through different female characters and their very different opinions on motherhood, Kawakami gives us a refreshingly honest look at the subject. Not every woman wants the same things. Not every woman experiences motherhood, or the desire for motherhood, in the same way. And perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, yet women are so often expected to follow the same path.

I also appreciated that none of the characters in this book are particularly easy to understand or even particularly “likeable.” They are complicated, messy, contradictory women who make choices that don’t always make sense to us. But I think that is precisely what makes them feel real. Kawakami doesn’t seem interested in making these women fit neatly into any particular idea of what a woman should be.

My journey of reading this book was an interesting one. There were moments when I found it uncomfortable, moments when I questioned what I was reading, and moments when I simply had to stop and think. But even after finishing it, the book stayed with me.

The book asks what happens when women stop simply accepting those roles and instead choose to live, love, exist, and make decisions in ways that make sense to them.

For me, Breast and Eggs was ultimately a book about the body, womanhood, choice, and the complicated ways in which we learn to understand ourselves. It made me think about parts of womanhood that I had never really stopped to examine, particularly my relationship with my own body. And perhaps that is what I appreciate most about this book: I finished it with more questions about myself than I had when I started it.

Rating: 5/5

xo

Yachna

P.S. Looking for more book reviews? Read my thoughts on Mother Mary Comes to Me, The Virgin Suicides, and Palace of Illusions.