Kakigori Summer

It’s been four years since I fell in love with Emily Itami’s debut novel Fault Lines and I’m happy to say it was worth the wait for her second one! 

When singing idol Takanawa Ai is caught coming out of a love hotel with the older married head of her record label, the Japanese public and media are quick to turn on her - not him. Caught in a spiral of deep depression, her two older sisters Rei, a no-nonsense, highly successful London businesswoman, and Kiki, a caregiver for the elderly and single mom step in. They take her to their childhood home in Kakigori for the summer - the village where they lost their mother to depression years ago. It’s also home to their sharp-tongued elderly great grandmother, Obaachan, who regularly offers ALL the opinions they never asked for! She’s very prickly, but begrudgingly lovable in her own way.

An interesting aspect to the story is that the sisters are what the Japanese would call “hafu” (mixed race), in this case having been born to a Japanese mother and a British father. This mirrors the author herself, so her inclusion of that experience in Japan was fascinating. The culture is deeply rooted in tradition, and I loved learning more about their ideas and customs. It was the book vacation I needed!

While it’s a journey through grief and healing, there’s so much humor and general “feel goods” in this story. It has the easy-breezy feel of summer in a small village, away from the chaos of jobs and crowds and the general demands of life, which was really soothing considering the state of the world right now. The author’s humor is sarcastic and witty - my favorite!

These sisters are very different, so I loved that the story was told through each of their POVs. Oldest sister Rei, like Obaachan, has very strong opinions and doesn’t always sugar-coat how she says them, but behind the tough exterior, she just wants to protect her younger siblings and give them a little of what they lost, even at her own expense sometimes.

Kiki buried her pain in a string of relationships that resulted in a very adorable, precocious blond-haired 5-year-old son named Hikaru who speaks fluent Japanese and refuses to learn English, thank you very much! He stole my heart and this book, honestly.

Ai, like their mother, struggles with periods of darkness that are intensified by the unrealistic and untenable expectations the Japanese put on female idols. She’s a very creative and gifted musician and hearing her struggles in her own words as she made it through them felt affirming and hopeful. I felt her sadness, but cheered for her as she pushed through it!

This was an immersion read, and I have one big piece of advice: I would NOT try to listen to this without the book to follow along. I loved the narration by Ami Okumura Jones, who’s British-Japanese herself, but the pronunciation of the Japanese words and concepts would’ve been very hard to understand without seeing the words and the sisters’ voices weren’t always distinguishable from each other.

If you enjoy a slower-paced, slice-of-life literary/family fiction novel with heart, humor and excellent writing, I highly recommend this. I can only hope it’s not another four year wait for Emily Itami’s next book! Thanks to Libby/my library for both the Kindle and audio copies.

★★★★ ½