Book Review: Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kawakami

2/5 ⭐️

The book is divided into 2 stories, the first one called Breasts which was actually nice. Natsu (the narrator / main character) talks about her older sister and her obsession about getting breast implants. It was interesting to see the where this desire was stemming from, considering that Natsu's sis was a single mom with an already teenage daughter. It was short and sweet.

The 2nd part though...It went on and on and never recovered. This time, it's all about Natsu. The entire thing felt like a rant. It was depressing as heck. First she talks about how poor they were growing up - so many flashbacks and memories from when her mom and grandmother were still alive. And then later on, she talks about her being a writer and the fact that she actually has money stashed in her bank account but she chooses not to spend it. Finally it's about her wanting to have kids and her considering artificial insemination and being a single mom.

It was so long I had to skim through the book to get to the final point. So many unnecessary parts which could have been entirely edited out. Eggs could have been a short, good read and it could have stood on its own, but this felt like Kawakami was forcing the story to stretch for as long as possible. 

Spoiler alert, after so much back and forth and research about artificial insemination and what felt like hundreds of pages of conversations with other people, she did in fact end up getting pregnant.