A curiously compelling debate about inequality and the complexity of choice.
Riki Ōishi still doesn’t know who she is or what she wants to do with her life. Will surrogacy be the answer?
Without skills or a degree from a prestigious university, 29-year-old Riki is finding it hard to succeed in Tokyo, although she was keen to move there from her small town in rural Hokkaido. Working as a temp, lonely and broke, she’s living on boiled eggs and marked-down convenience food. So the idea of becoming an egg donor at a fertility clinic has its financial attractions. But Riki bears a close physical resemblance to Yuko Kusaoke, wife of ballet dancer Motoi. Because the couple can’t conceive, Riki is asked to become their surrogate through artificial insemination using her own eggs, in exchange for 10 million yen. Celebrated Japanese author Kirino’s dryly observed novel carefully considers the peculiarity of surrogacy: Is it just business, or exploitative, a transaction that takes advantage of “poor women selling their uteruses”? Over time, the characters all seem in two minds about the arrangement. Since surrogacy is illegal in Japan, Motoi and Yuko must divorce (on paper) and Motoi must marry Riki for the plan to go ahead. On a brief trip home, Riki ends up sleeping with an old lover. Then, back in Tokyo, she sleeps with another friend, so when she becomes pregnant (with twins), doubts arise over paternity. Yuko and Motoi start to grow apart, not least because Yuko has no interest in children that aren’t related to her. Motoi feels compromised about plans to raise infants if they’re not his. Multiple conversations ensue—sometimes repetitively—about the options and ethics of the situation. Class, morality, obligation, and gender all come up for scrutiny as Kirino moves her figures through further emotional responses once the babies are born. The sifting concludes with Riki, who has matured (and suffered) enough, making a decision for all involved.
A curiously compelling debate about inequality and the complexity of choice.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780307267580
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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