Sisters In Yellow

by Mieko Kawakami

Hana is desperately trying to get out of her mother’s poverty cycle. She quits going to school and starts working more and more as a waitress at a family restaurant in her neighborhood in Tokyo. When her mother suddenly disappears, Kimiko is there to care for her. She opens up Hana’s world and introduces her to the idea of running a bar together. Hana is confronted with many ups and downs, but she never gives up working hard for her future.

I would have liked to discover more about Kimiko’s past. Her character is not very developed, which makes her look unreliable but is she really? A little over halfway Hana also started to feel like an unreliable narrator. Is she as innocent as portrayed? There’s also Ran and Momoko who join Hana and Kimiko along the line, who are being sucked into Hana’s vortex of control.

Sisters in Yellow is pretty slow paced, but in lit-fic this doesn’t bother me at all. Hana’s rollercoaster of a life is so intriguing. I wanted to pick up the book again and again, even after reading only small sections every sitting.

Kawakami adapts a realistic worldbuilding of Tokyo and Japan in general. The story provides insight into Japanese nightlife, its underworld and the introduction of modern electronics in the 90's.

I found the conclusion to be a bit dissatisfactory. I expected a more worked out mystery element to Kimiko’s trial, and I certainly expected a harsher betrayal between Hana’s friends. It’s true Hana got a chance to say goodbye to Kimiko, but it didn’t feel like real closure to me.

Sisters in Yellow is the first work I’ve read by by Mieko Kawakami. I already had my eyes on her previous books, but this one surprisingly came onto my path earlier.

Themes touched upon are; poverty, family and friends relationships, gang participation, scamming, asexuality, mental disorders and anxiety.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher Pan Macmillan | Picador for providing me with a DRC of this book.