Motherhood is often described as the greatest sacrifice. In what other "profession" do you give so much of yourself to others? Throw in being a wife to boot, and it's enough to drive any woman mad. Just kidding, of course, we know you love your family, but have you ever dreamed about what your life might have been had you not married and had kids? Enter Emily Itami with her candid and affirming debut novel, Fault Lines, which tells the tale of an under-stimulated Tokyo housewife who catches a glimpse of her former self through a relationship with a local restauranteur.

Don't get Mizuki wrong - she loves her kids. Her husband? Well, that's up for debate. He seems to love his job more than he loves her these days. But she DOES love her kids ... it is just sometimes they drive her a bit up the wall. Stuck in a high-rise Tokyo apartment day in and day out, Mizuki dreams of a different life. When she makes the acquaintance of a successful restauranteur, Kiyoshi, he reminds her of the girl she once was before motherhood and marriage took over her life. Is the magic she experiences with Kiyoshi enough to make her leave her family behind though? And would she really want to?

Although the friendship turned romantic relationship in Fault Lines is often mentioned as a focal point of the novel, this is actually more of a story of the inner musings of a mother and wife. Mizuki is hilariously refreshing, and although I am not a wife and mother myself, I found her portrayal of the "job" to be frank, honest, and highly relatable. Itami has a beautiful way of writing the mind and I so enjoyed reading all of the varied ways she described Mizuki's innermost thoughts and feelings. Mizuki and Kiyoshi's relationship wasn't the most interesting or compelling part of this novel to me - Mizuki herself is what had me hooked.

I listened to an audiobook production of Fault Lines narrated by Lydia Wilson. I thought that she was a surprising choice as Fault Lines is written by a Tokyo native about a character living in Tokyo. However, when considering that Emily Itami now lives in London, and this book was likely written for an English audience, it makes sense. I found Wilson's voice to be incredibly soothing and intimate, which worked well for this book. It fit my image of Mizuki being a soft-spoken housewife who is sharing her eyebrow-raising secrets quietly with the rest of the world.

You will enjoy Fault Lines if you are looking for a book about flawed characters who dream of something more, especially if you enjoy reading books about motherhood and marriage. Those who love literary fiction or novels that feel just a little bit different, while still being fairly mainstream will also like this story.

What an absolutely lovely book!! Perhaps because my son lives in Japan with his Japanese wife and their newborn baby, I found this even more fascinating than I would have otherwise, but I think it's something that everyone would enjoy and be charmed by. The witty observations and self-aware musings of the main character and narrator, Mizuki, are totally delightful. I love how she balances her love for her family with her desire for new excitement, as well as how she combines her worldly view--she lived in New York for several years--with a love and appreciation for her Japanese heritage. I found everything about this book to be completely satisfying. I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook version, and the narrator, Lydia Wilson, was absolutely charming. There is a little passage in the first two minutes of the book where the phrase, "What is love," is repeated several times; the delivery is a total delight and the masterful performance continues throughout the book. Here is a testament to how much I enjoyed listening to this book. Since the audiobook seems not to have downloaded completely on my first try and therefore stopped a few times while I was driving and out of Wi-Fi range. I wasn't entirely sure that I hadn't missed something as a result. Although I was close to the end of the book, I decided to start again from the beginning to be sure. It turns out I hadn't missed anything, but I absolutely didn't mind listening to it all twice in a week, even though I completely remembered everything I was hearing again. I hope that Emily Itami writes many more books--I anxiously await them! Many thanks to HarperAudio and NetGalley for an advance copy of the audiobook. Loved it!!

The main character believes she is stuck in a loveless marriage with an in caring husband. Then she meets the man who opens her eyes to a whole new Japan and to how love can be. What is it going to take to make this blossom or crumble down. A beautifully written and narrated story of current love in Japan.

Thank you NetGalley for an audio-ARC of Fault Lines by Emily Itami.
Fault Lines is a story for women who feel trapped by marriage and the exhaustion of motherhood. A story for every woman who felt that she was not good enough for the life of a housewife. A short, poignant story of one woman searching for a way out of the drudgery of everyday. Emily Itami creates a relatable character and makes it easy to feel the pull of her life. I loved the cultural references and learned about how Japanese feel toward Americans. Although Lydia Wilson's voice stuck with me long after the book ended, her voice did not have a Japanese feel that would have made the book culturally correct. I also had trouble with the characters names and pronunciations. Several of them sounded similar and I had trouble keeping the characters straight for the first several chapters. For this book, I would have preferred to read the text rather than listen to the audio.

This book was a very moving story of what it means to find purpose in life as a woman, mother, and lover - in all the iterations and combinations of those things. I loved the narrator and the characters. The ending was especially thrilling and one of those scenes I'll be thinking about for awhile. Five stars!

This book was all encompassing. I listened to the audiobook, and was drawn in and held captive from beginning to end, sympathizing with the main character, Mizuki. The writing is perfectly suited to the subject matter, and the narration is beautifully performed.

Mizuki lives in Tokyo and is a stay-at-home wife and mother. She only sees her husband briefly in the mornings and nights because he’s a “salary man”, and that requires that he puts in long hours at work. It seems that all he cares about anymore is work, and a bit about the children. She feels left out. Before she married, she’d traveled to New York as an exchange student, and then returned to be a singer. Now, all she does is cook, take care of the children and the house, and do laundry. She’s bored. She does, however, occasionally go out with her girlfriends. On one of those excursions, she meets someone, and they hit it off. She’s thrilled with the attention, but worried that word might get back to her husband. She does love her husband, after all, and she doesn’t want to lose her children. Following Mizuki as she works this all out is intriguing and wonderful.

A delightful character study of a woman caught in a culture she no longer fits, maybe never fit completely. This book is well worth your time. I raced through this audiobook, eager to learn what happens to Mizuki and her family, and I wasn’t disappointed. My favorite section was when Mizuki is with her children on a subway train when there's an earthquake. She came across as a superhero. If you enjoy Japanese fiction, I highly recommend this book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. I thank all involved for their generosity, but it had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.

1.5 Stars

Eh...this book was really my type. I'm not sure if it was because of the non-American names but I kept getting confused about who was who. Also, why did the names change spelling? And I had to look up a few words to see what they meant. Oh well, just not for me.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

One of my favorite books this year. Emily Itami is wildly talented and the life she brings the reader into was so fully developed, Hizuki becoming a woman I felt to truly know. The narration was beautifully done, I would like to revisit this in book form. I’m a fan.

the story of a mother in Tokyo struggling to reconcile the good life she has - kids, successful husband, nice apartment, with happiness. What will make her happy if everything she has doesn't? And what will she have to give up to pursue this happiness?

The narrator does a credible job giving voice to Mizuki and bringing the listener into her story.

This one wasn't for me. I'm not a huge fan of character-driven novels, so I found Fault Lines boring. For me, the main character was unlikeable and unrelatable, although I do suspect that there are women out there who can relate to Mizuki's experience. I did enjoy the narrator & the Toyko setting.

This was a good book but unfortunately not for me. The story was fine and characters were actually quite good but I just couldn't get into this. I did not relate to the main character at all and I found the jumping around to be jarring. I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy this I just don't think I was/am not the intended audience.

What an awesome debut! Emily Itami is a brilliant writer, and I am already looking forward to her next book. I really enjoyed this one and listened to it compulsively. The writing is beautiful; lyrical, descriptive, so clever, precise and full of humor. I laughed out loud, which is not usually something I do while walking with an audio book in my ear!

This is a character driven book with not much as far as a plot. I loved Mizuki and her self-deprecating, funny way of navigating her life as a housewife and mother. There are flashbacks to her youth in the US and her life as a singer and the backstory as to why she chose her current path. The descriptions of the day-to-day events that occur are wise and often hilarious. I especially enjoyed the scenes involving the children, like the one with her toddler and the thong! Her kids were very real in all their endearing and annoying ways. Itami takes on the ordinary and the passionate and the book is full of her observations of herself, her marriage, acquaintances and her career. I love the image of the “supplicant to the laundry goddess” I honestly believed she was doing the best she could to be the best version of herself. There was no whining as she knows she is living the good life with first world problems but I did empathize and identify with her ennui. Her ultimate decision at the conclusion of the book is not the expected one; I admire her bravery as she maturely comes to terms with what she needs to do to be who she wants to be. That’s a universal issue we all face and she ends the book in a satisfying way; content, if not quite happy, with her choices.

I want to visit Toyko after reading this! Her descriptions of the landscape, the people, their customs and their interactions with Americans were so incredibly interesting. The contrast between day and night was wonderful. She makes fun of her own adherence to the Japanese stereotypical ways while shining an instructive light on how Japanese view Americans. I learned a lot! No means yes and yes may mean no! Her description of Lawrence was so educational to me, as an American. She points out how he is seen through the eyes of a native, but she appreciates him for his Americanisms.

The narrator was so very British that I did have to remind myself Mizuki was Japanese. The voice is great but not what I’d expect to hear from the mouth of someone born and raised in Japan. She did spent time in the US so I was a bit put off by the obvious British slang, like “taking the piss” etc. If anything, I’d recommend maybe a more neutral accent. Kyoshi seemed a bit one dimensional, a bit too perfect, but we are seeing him through Mizuki’s eyes so perhaps that’s intentional. She’s so hard on herself but finds no fault with him, unlike her husband.

This is an amazing debut from a highly talented author. Thank you for the advance copy. I loved it.

Fault lines by Emily Itami was not what I expected at all. I had a hard time with the narrator who did not sound Asian. I felt the story dragged on.

Japanese housewife Mizuki has grown tired of the polite and emotionless masks she's expected to wear, tired of her listless husband, and even tired of her moody and needy children, even though she adores them. It's not too long after contemplating jumping her apartment balcony that she meets the enigmatic Kyoshi, a handsome fellow bilingual man that sees her as Mizuki, not just a wife and mother. As their friendship grows, so does an affair of the heart as Mizuki weaves between her home life and outings with Kyoshi, between duty and individualism. Fault Lines is a brilliant novel of desire, yearning, responsibility, and all of the feelings and complications that intersect between them. I would even go as far as to say it felt Gatsby-esque, except Mizuki actually pays attention to her children.

The sound quality of audiobooks on net galley are still incredibly poor. The sound is tinny and unfinished. It is like listening to a bootleg version of an audiobook, which is quite unpleasant. I was not able to finish listening because it gave me a headache and made the experience awful. I have submitted many tickets to have this issue looked at but it does not seem to be changing. Very unfortunate as I am an avid fan of audiobooks.

I am still excited to finish this book, just sadly it will have to be as an ebook.

I loved this book. There was so much depth to it for a short book. Mizuki is such an interesting protagonist. I feel like we really got deep into her feelings and struggles and I really felt for her.

This novel definitely what i thought it was going to be in such a beautiful way. Mizuki is a wife and a mother of two living in a beautiful Tokyo home. She meets a successful restaurateur, and their affair gives Mizuki a spark she has been missing, Written in a witty and thought provoking way, Fault Lines is an amazing debut that you should put on your. TBR List.