there’s something so magical and special about mieko kawakami that just can’t be recreated 😆😆
“the melody was full of the qualities of light, as if pointing gently toward something or guiding something along, each sound twinkling through the veil of darkness that surrounded me when i closed my eyes. in my chair, i surrender myself to a world of sound that could only be described as sparkling. it made my head sway, and my breath grew deeper as my legs climbed up that evanescent staircase, each step a sheet of light. they would shimmer to life the second my sole made contact, then fizzle into stardust when i lifted my foot, only to be reborn as yet another step, gently showing me the way. that slowly winding spiral stairway of light ascended freely through the dark, and though i was unsure where it was taking me, or what i would find when i arrived, as long as the music was playing, i knew that there was nothing to fear, that i could go anywhere at all. as i climbed one step after another, i ran the soft part over every gleaming note, stringing them together in a necklace that i placed over my chest, or stretching them with both hands into a hoop of light that i could step inside and pass through, over and over. i took a giant breath, my utterly transparent chest sparkling with light as if i’d swallowed a nebula from tens of thousands of light years away. my exhalation, sparkling with a mist of light, hovered before me, but if i scooped it up in my hands and took another deep breath, my arms and throat began to glow from the inside, down to my palms, and as i gazed into them, i realized i was floating in space. i shut my eyes and held out my arms, shaking my body and head every which way, dancing and stirring up the light as i waltzed endlessly around my apartment.”

I found this book mostly very uncomfortable to read, but that is a function of the subject matter, and not of the writing. It read like an extension of Heaven—thinking about what happens to the bullied child who then grows up and hides into herself, choosing not to engage with the outside world. But the love story confused me—to avoid giving spoilers, it had a surprising ending, and not what seemed like a logical extension of the relationship.

The author writes in a lyrical emotional ly moving style.As with her previous novel the role of women in society as seen through the eyes of the characters.I was immediately drawn into this novel into the life of the lead character a young proofreader her daily struggles the bullying she suffers.As I did with her previous novel I will be recommending to friends bookclubs will make excellent points for discussion.#netgalley #europaeditions

Fuyuko Irie doesn't have much going for her at the age of thirty four — she lives alone and is self admittedly not the most interesting person.

The very first page of this book was so striking that I immediately knew it was going to be my new favorite from Mieko Kawakami, and I was not wrong. This book is so charming in a similar way to other contemporary Japanese novels like Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Actually, I would say it has the characterizations of Murata and the understated beauty of Yoshimoto's writing. The writing style is much more 'present' than that of Kawakami's other works.

I keep wanting to compare this to more and more female asian authors but it would be a disservice to generalize like that and extremely ignorant of me when I just mean to laud the particular understated and compelling way these women write about womanhood.

“When it comes to love, the only weapon that we’ve got is our emotions, right? So what can you do when your foundation’s all messed up?"

All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

Fuyuko Irie, a woman who lives alone and works with the company of books she is proof reading. When she one day realises that she is all alone and just existing, she has to face her life choices.

The book starts slowly with details of mandane routine activities that Fukuko does daily alone with her anxiety around people, her alcoholism to escape the anxiety. It's her isolated world on the whole!! He only contact with the outer world is ambitious and outgoing Hijiri.

Lost and lonely Fukuyo tries to get a life and meets Mitsutsuka, a high school physics teacher who she bonds over discussion on light. Light enters even through the lightest of the cracks and help see what is there. Not leaving us completely sad, the author illuminates Fukuyo's life finally opening up to someone despite her anxiety.

The book does not have a plot or twists. It's just an exploration of the life of Fukuyo - her lonely life that is so calm on the outside but with filled with loud thoughts fighting on the inside. We meet a few women that Fukuyo comes in contact, we see the contrast of how a lot of daily choices can make a person. The writing ensures that each woman is unique in her own way, making the best possible for her. We get a glimpse of life of shy, awkward Fukuyo and her internal thoughts and questions on life when she meets other women her age. The ending felt so subtle and also rushed that it left me wanting more details. Otherwise the book has beautiful prose about a woman struggling to find her place in the world.

Mieko Kawakami’s “All the Lovers in the Night,” was an engaging book about women, loneliness, and relationships. This original, captivating story is about a 34-year-old female proofreader. The quiet flow of the character study and reveal is one the reader cannot put down. What a delight to read, from first sentence, to the perfect ending. I highly recommend “ All the Lovers in the Night” if you are looking for an original, engaging, intelligent read. The perfect book!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

This book started off slow, but in its second half, cut into my heart before I knew what had happened. Fuyuko’s intense loneliness and depression are written so genuinely, and her character is authentic and beautifully flawed. Just like she did in Heaven, Kawakami gives her readers a brilliant take on life and the human condition, written in stark language and with especially compelling dialogue between characters.

I really enjoyed this book and at the same time it made me feel uncomfortable while reading. I want to give triggerwarnings at the end of this review, some might see them as spoilers but I wished I had known beforehand. Overall this book was heavy and as in most Japanese contemporary with a hint of romance it was slowburn and while we followed our main character we didn't follow a full storyline. But even though it was slowburn it just kept me reading, I wanted to know how it ends. I still must say that with a few parts I wished we didn't only have the view from the main characters perspective since hers was sometimes warped and things that were clearly a problem where never completely mentioned by it's name, because she clearly didn't want to or couldn't see it as the problem it was. So sometimes I wanted to shout at the actions of other people but she just nodded and it was kinda getting a tiny bit annoying to me. Also I think a few people could feel attacked by the way some characters talk about others character traits. But it was still a good thing because as a contemporary a book needs to play with characters a lot in my opinion and that was done pretty well. I wished for a bit more positivity as the rants about character traits where getting a kind of repetitive.
Also this book is very quotable and I love the writing style, the idea in itself to write about proofreader was also interesting and I love to read about such perspectives as I find the world of books including publishing fascinating. Also at some point I wasn't even sure anymore if some mistakes in this book were really just mistakes or done on purpose.
Overall I enjoyed this book and it's a 4/5 for me.

Please be aware of the following TRIGGERWARNINGS: Rape, Suicide (only mentioned once and not from the main characters perspective), Depression symptoms.

Major thanks to NetGalley for this delightful ARC.

This is my first Kawakami, and I wish it wasn't as this feels like something Mieko has earned the right to write as it focuses on what it means to be a writer, how to fill a character and how to empty them, how to get them nearly there and not at all.

I've been on a long run of detached narratives at the moment. I just got out of reading Tao Lin's Leave Society and now in the midst of Sheila Heti's Pure Colour, characters who are devoid of living, stuck in gray spaces, driftwood, damp and darkened by society's ailments.

Here we are in modern Japan, troubled with the usual societal expectations of women, to marry man, to bear child, to be more than the work hours. Mieko is incredibly successful in how she creates a character so far apart from the modern world in the relationships she has with friends and a single boy she can't get her mind off of yet can't seem to pursue. There's a pressure, a block, a way in the writing that edges us on without letting us come to any steady ground. We, as readers, feel unfulfilled in the best way possible.

The way Kakami writes is fascinating. For the most part, we dwell in conversations that drift in and out, in what seem to be surface-leveled conversations that sometimes reach designated epiphanies and mostly end up in dead-ends where we stay stacked-stuck with our narrator.

A quick, exceptional read.

For those who feel a bit lost in the early years of their career.

For the loveless.

For the hikikomori who have nothing to do and no one to meet.

Although I typically prefer fast paced, plot driven narratives, I continue to pick up Mieko Kawakami novels and am never disappointed. Her latest contemplates introversion, trauma, work ethic, and, of course gender. Her novels always stick with me long after I turn the final page.

“The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright.”
“You’re right Mitsutsuka. It isn't anything, but it's so beautiful I could cry”

What does it mean to be a woman in society?
What does it mean to be a successful woman?
How can you develop a fulfilled life?
How can we express ourselves as individuals?
What creates a meaningful relationship?

These were questions explored in Meiko Kawakami’s new novel All the Lovers in the Night.

I dove into the NetGalley/Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) reading experience with a book about a woman who proofreads galleys! This was a sublime, beautiful, slice-of-life story examining a woman’s period of life where she explores her identity and opens herself up to new relationships.

Fuyuko Irie is approaching middle age. A shy and quiet woman, Fuyuko lives along the fringes of the bustling, fast paced Tokyo work culture. We meet her as she passively moves through life, her goals and motivations lay solely on completing the next assignment. After a thought provoking lunch with her closest friend, Hijiri, Fuyuko makes an initiative to change her life. In her endeavor, she meets the middle aged Misutsuka and a friendship follows from there. As Fuyuko’s relationships with these two deepen, we see Fuyuko’s personality, identity, and values evolve.

All the Lovers in the Night plays with motifs of feminine and masculine, the moon and the sun as Fuyuko comes to understand herself primarily through her relationships and interactions. The narrative alternates between Fuyuko’s past and present relationships with both men and women. I found the insights into the past to be heartbreaking, and they gave much more depth to Fuyuko’s introversion. I love how Kawakemi uses Fuyuko’s present interactions to demonstrate Fuyuko’s evolution, setting up Fuyuko to ultimately face herself.
The secondary characters in the story were well developed. Each persona provided a mirror or even a window for Fuyuko to explore herself and her own potential. Conversely, Fuyuko is the mirror and window for the secondary characters as well to ask questions of themselves and their own livelihoods. I enjoyed how Kawakemi primarily creates a story of women redefining the definition of feminine and femininity for themselves, subtly emphasizing the importance of lifting each other up in a patriarchal society. Hijiri’s character was most interesting to me as an individual, as her lifestyle vacillated between the acceptable and taboo. Mitsuka’s character served as the antithesis to Fuyuko’s past experiences with males, subverting some of the ideals traditionally upheld in the masculine identity.
I felt the narrative to be heartfelt and appreciated the treatment of her characters. We see the development of both Fuyuko and Hijiri, and to an extent some of her old friends as they grapple with society’s expectations of women. The narrative balances the past and present well so that we could understand Fuyukos personality development. Much of the story is told through the second characters since Fuyuko has difficulty articulating her own thoughts and opinions. When we do get Fuyuko’s perspective, we often get caught in both her reveries and anxieties. I would have liked to have seen more of the narrative through Fuyuko as she comes to love and accept herself.

All the Lovers in the Night wasan easy to follow and compelling slice-of-life story.. I enjoyed watching Fuyuko change her life and outlook to have more self confidence, purpose, and ultimately contentment with herself and others.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Mieko Kawakami’s All the Lovers of the night centers on Fuyuko Irie, a lonely, socially inept proofreader, first working in an office where she is unhappy and mocked by coworkers and then as a freelancer working from home after having been recommended by Kyoko, a former coworker and now an editor for another publisher.

Uncomfortable and awkward around others, 34-year-old Fuyuko Irie rarely goes out except to take a late-night walk on her Christmas Eve birthday. On the rare occasions she does go out, she doesn’t know what to do or how to enjoy herself. Even when surrounded by others, she thinks about their having somewhere to go, someone to go with, someone to meet, while she is alone with nowhere to go except home.

When she sees her sad, lonely reflection in the glass, she attempts to change her life without seeming to be conscious of doing so. After being tempted to turn down an invitation to meet Hijiri Ishikawa, the company liaison for freelance proofreaders, she ends up sipping non-alcoholic cocktails at the bar while Hijiri downs drink after drink, rambling about the types of women she dislikes as Fuyuko Irie says little. Instead, on her own at home, she begins drinking excessively. Two trips to a cultural center to choose and sign up for a class prove disastrous except for her meeting Mitsutsuka, an older man whom she begins meeting in a coffee shop.

While I waited impatiently for something more to happen, Fuyuko Irie continued to meet with Hijiri, Mitsutsuka, and eventually with a former classmate named Noriko for largely directionless conversations that, for the most part aren’t conversations at all.

For a while, I thought Fuyuko Irie and Mitsutsuka might find true love. Gradually, I began to think that my expectation of this being Fuyuko Irie’s story may have been wrong. The book title probably should have made me realize that sooner. When Kawakami deftly works the title into the book’s conclusion, she turns my ambivalent feelings into admiration.

Thanks to NetGalley and Europa Editions for an advance reader copy.

I have not read any other titles by Mieko Kawakami but I am aware of the success and popularity of 'Breasts and Eggs'. Kawakami has a completely unique writing style that I have fallen in love with especially her prose that I went back to reread. I will definitely be reading further works by this author as I am completely in awe with her work. The book was thought provoking as well as stunning. Although the book was translated, it reads amazingly still. Kawakami does a wonderful job in showing the complexity of the main character with themes of loneliness and anxiety. This book is truly one of kind and I look forward to reading further works by this author.

Thank you to NetGallery for the advance copy of this book.

This novel centers around Fuyuko Irie who is a freelance copy editor living in Tokyo who has trouble creating and maintaining relationships. In her thirties, the person she interacts most with is her editor. One day, after catching sight of her reflection in a window, she is shocked by who is staring back at her - a woman too weak to change her unhappy trajectory. After this inciting incident, Fuyuko vows to take control of her life. But moving forward means visiting difficult parts of her past. As a huge fan of Breasts and Eggs, I found this novel less engaging and a bit slower-paced. There’s a detachment to Fuyoki and, at times, I had a hard time connecting with the character. It is a reflective novel about self-discovery and Kawakami is a beautiful and thoughtful writer, oftentimes heartbreaking and poignant and for this alone, this book is worth picking up and reading this novel.

Though I’m not a reader who needs a plot-driven story, this novel’s slow pace left my mind numbed.

Fuyuko Irie, 34, is a freelance proofreader in Tokyo. She describes the entirety of her life in a few words: “I live alone. I’ve been living in the same apartment forever. . . . I like to go out on a walk once a year on my birthday . . . I have no friends to talk to on a regular basis.” Her life revolves around her work. Seeing her reflection one day, she sees “the dictionary definition of a miserable person.” The person with whom she has the most contact is Hijiri Ishikawa, an editor whose personality and lifestyle are totally different. Desperately lonely, Fuyuko starts to drink to ease her discomfort in the outside world. During this time, she meets Mitsutsuka, a physics teacher who is 24 years her senior, with whom she establishes a friendship.

The glacial pace is the result of monologues. There are the lengthy monologues delivered by secondary characters. Hijiri, for example, goes on and on, speaking virtually non-stop because Fuyuko says little. When Fuyuko meets Noriko, a former classmate, and Kyoko, a former colleague, it is these women who dominate the conversations with seemingly endless discussion of topics that interest them. Exchanges with Mitsutsuka are vague philosophical discussions or focus on the physics of light and colour. And then Fuyuko’s internal monologues analyzing her thoughts and emotions become repetitive and tedious. More than once I found my eyes glazing over.

The book is a character study of its protagonist. We learn that Fuyuko was always an introvert who was socially awkward, but a traumatic event leaves her fragile self-esteem in tatters. She becomes totally passive, eventually admitting that “I’d done nothing with my life, glossing over it all. I was so scared of being hurt that I’d done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.” I appreciated that she is a dynamic character who learns that “’we can forget pretty much anything’” and a pain can exist in memory “growing weaker by the day” so it can eventually be lost entirely.

Because of its themes of isolation and loneliness, this novel reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Eleanor's transformational journey towards a fuller understanding of self and life is more compelling.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance editor, her life dedicated to scouring novels for errors but no matter what she does, an error always crops up once the book is published. She has managed to pass through life making very few decisions, following the path laid out for her, until one day, she catches her reflection in the mirror. A miserable woman stares back, stirring something in Fuyuko and in that moment she decides to do something about it.

This novel explores womanhood, the societal expectations imposed upon woman and whether it is possible to ever escape them. Kawakami introduces a cast of woman who choose different paths: an old school friend with children in a loveless marriage, a co-worker who sleeps with whoever she pleases and Fuyuko, who chooses nothing. No matter their path, none of them manage to achieve happiness. Even when Fuyuko makes the decision become more active in her own life, she finds the outcome is no different.

All The Lovers in the Night fits into depressed-woman fiction that is very popular at the moment, although it is more reminiscent of the emptiness of Convenience Store Woman. Kawakami has a distinct voice that permeates through her novels as well as having the ability to carefully craft different opinions and weave them into a narrative. If you enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, this is definitely one you should check out.

I've always had a weakness for misfits and loners in novels. Hence, no wonder, after a few pages of the book "All the Lovers in the Night" by Mieko Kawakami, I realized that I really liked the main character, Fuyoko Irie. She is a 34-year-old woman living alone in Tokyo, whose days are filled with working at home as a proofreader. Fuyoko lives by responding to other people's interests and needs, but she does not initiate new contacts or changes in her life. A very introverted person, she looks at the world as an observer, not a participant, noting the colors, sounds, people, and scenes. Her social life consists of hanging out occasionally with Hijiri, her elegant and exuberant friend and the total opposite of Fuyoko. Despite Fuyoko's organized days, the outside world grows increasingly hostile. Soon she discovers that she can only deal with it in a state of daze, so a carry-on thermos filled with sake becomes her companion.

The novel has other young women: a former school friend Noriko, now a housewife with no particular plans for the future, and Kyoko, a former co-worker. There is also a man: 50-year-old Mitsutsuka, who introduces himself as a professor of physics and with whom Fuyoko starts meeting regularly in a coffee shop.

Struggling, Fuyoko's real, poetic personality, hidden under her armor, slowly begins to emerge. A world, according to Fuyoko, might be utterly different from ours, but it's a fascinating world, and I tremendously enjoyed stepping into it.

This story follows Fuyuko, a thirty-four-year-old freelance manuscript editor. Fuyuko spends most of her time alone, causing her to feel disconnected from the outside world and the people around her like an outgoing coworker named Hijiri. As she is trying to coast through life by drinking and taking walks at night, she is met with feelings of withdrawal from herself, becoming accustomed to the feeling of being completely alone and lonely. That is until she meets Mitsutsuka, a physics teacher. The two strike up a relationship that shows Fuyuko a different type of connection to someone she has not felt before.

Kawakami's writing style is deliberately slow, driving the home of isolation, loneliness, and the mental health struggles the characters are going through. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck, living day after day but not really living. While I found this another great story showcasing mental illness in a bleak and realistic manner, it was hard to get into at some parts.

This is still a story that I would recommend people to pick up and see for themselves because Kawakami is such an amazing writer that deserves to be read.

This is the second novel I've read by Kawakami, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first. The character development and insight was captivating. I read this book in one day. Depressing, comfort books are my favorite genre.

“I was so scared of being hurt that I'd done nothing. I was so scared of falling, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.”

It is difficult to put into words all my feelings for this book and for the main character Fuyuko. When we are first presented with Fuyuko, she describes herself as unimportant. You are led to believe she lives a simplistic, boring life, and so she herself is a simple, boring woman. This is not the case. Slowly, you begin to unravel her fears, her desires, her love. Kawakami beautifully captures the growing feeling of loneliness and isolation one feels as life goes on. The pressures we feel from not only society, but the criticisms of ourselves for not fitting in seamlessly. It’s through Fuyuko’s social attempts and existential musings that we discover the life inside her waiting to come out, particularly in her meetings with Mitsutsuka and their conversations about light. (Honestly, I kept referring to his book as All the Lovers in the Light by mistake but feel this title also fits). A slow but beautiful and relatable read.