A younger sister feeds her elder sister, who is approaching the time to give birth, grapefruit jam that may be tainted with poison. ...... "Pregnancy Calendar," winner of the 104th Akutagawa Prize, beautifully depicts the delicate and subtle fluctuations in psychology and physiology triggered by pregnancy. Residents disappearing? "Dormitory," a story of a lonely student dormitory shrouded in mystery, and "The School Lunchroom at Dusk and the Rainy Pool," the confession of a man fascinated by the...

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Specs

Page Count:

202

ISBN:

4167557010

ISBN13:

9784167557010

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WaniKani Book Club

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Reviews

(4.31/5)

16 ratings4 reviews

Entertainment(4.29/5)

7 ratings

Language learning(4.50/5)

6 ratings

Boodilsays

January 2, 2025

Language Learning

Entertainment

A collection of three short stories, each of them about an unnamed young woman whose life is going through an unwelcome change, set in an eery, dreamlike atmosphere. Each of the narrators is, in their own way, out of touch with her own emotions, in one case so much she might count as an unreliable narrator.

While the style itself is straightforward enough, and a good source of exposure to slice-of-life-y vocab, this provides a challenge to the reader. You have to pay constant attention to nuan

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polvsays

December 22, 2024

Language Learning

Entertainment

Deep narration, over the imagination, some interesting dark themes.

Short stories thread to an end, and still something feels left unsaid, perhaps should explain more. Not sure if this would be well-received or not.

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Belerithsays

November 22, 2021

Language Learning

Entertainment

The book uses very every day kind of language. The stories are all written from the point of view of one character, which both tends to be a bit easier than 3rd person pov and also gives a pretty good taste of how someone may think in Japanese.

There's not that much furigana, and the book is clearly intended for adults (both wrt the themes as well as th language used) but the style is very clean and not too complicated or abstract, making it rather easy to follow along.

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omk3says

September 8, 2023

Yoko Ogawa's writing manages to take something commonplace and familiar, or even something joyful, like a pregnancy, and infuse it with a sense of eeriness. There is a vaguely unsettling atmosphere throughout all three of the novellas in this collection. The reader's imagination does most of the work, and the text only feeds this imagination by highlighting slightly off details in an otherwise mostly familiar context.

What I found really interesting is that while the narration is in the first

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nikorurated

January 15, 2025

Language Learning