A review by james1star
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I picked this up as a ‘blind date with a book’ and was pleasantly impressed. It’s quite a strange one consisting of two short stories (the first split into two parts so three chapters in total), the first about a young woman Mikage who recently lost her sole family member, her grandmother. Yuichi who knew her grandmother asks Mikage round with the possibility of moving in wi yh him and his mother Eriko, who’s a trans woman. The second story follows Satsuki who recently lost her high school lover of four years Hitoshi as she tries to look to the future. Out running she meets a strange woman called Urara who says a once in a hundred year event will take place, Hitoshi’s you get brother Hiiragi is another strange but lovable character we meet. 

The prominent motif throughout is grief, the many forms and how it impacts oneself. This sensation is heavily explored and Yoshimoto does a great job at realising these characters and thus how they’re impacted by the death of loved ones. Her storytelling isn’t particularly imaginative but is very real and flows well. The characters are for the most part loveable but what’s done best is how we’re attached to them as a reader in an emotional way. Some sentences maybe went on too long with many passages but her nuance/craft could’ve been lost in translation. Being written in 1988, I thought the inclusion of a transgender character was rather ‘modern’ and greatly appreciated, Yoshimoto’s work was hailed as very contemporary in Japan so this is great. That being said, some parts made me a little uncomfortable where there’s an emphasis played on Eriko (and later Chika)’s ‘masculine’ features, with some outdated terms like ‘transsexual’ with deadnaming and Yuichi has a ‘she was/is a man’ ideology. But this was about it and overall I was impressed by this book. It’s not a favourite but definitely decent and one I’d recommend, the author does an amazing job at making grief a very real and important emotion. 
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