by Mieko Kawakami
translated by Louise Heal Kawai
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Published: 2018
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Genre: Literary, Coming of Age, Novella, Japan
Paperback: 96
Rating: 4
First sentence(s):
Two-Hundred-Thirteen to Florida, three-hundred-twenty to polite, three-hundred-eighty to church medicine, four-hundred-fifteen to choco skip, four-hundred-thirty to your forties, vegetable boots is always five-hundred.
A boy is obsessed with a woman who sells sandwiches. He goes to the supermarket almost every day, just so he can look at her face. She is beautiful to him, and he calls her "Ms Ice Sandwich", and endlessly draws her portrait.
But the boy's friend hears about this hesitant adoration, and suddenly everything changes. His visits to Ms Ice Sandwich stop, and with them the last hopes of his childhood.
My two-bits:
A light read but touching with its theme of relationships and fleeting moments.
Loved learning a bit of the goings on in a contemporary Japanese small town.
* part of World Reads challenge - Japan (here)
