Reviews

I chanced upon this whimsical read and whilst, admittedly, the gorgeous cover caught my attention first, the synopsis that followed piqued my interest in a matter of seconds.

It comes as a surprise that this is the author’s debut novel since the flow of the story is deliciously paced and absorbing. Through the protagonist, Shibata, we are introduced to a gendered workplace where simply for the virtue (?) of being a woman, she is expected to do all the menial tasks. When one day Shibata has had enough of cleaning up after people, she announces that she cannot clear away her collagues’ coffee cups because the smell nauseates her as she is pregnant...

...except she is not.

What starts of as a curious lie, starts building up into something very bizarre. The readers are taken along on this interesting ‘pregnancy’ journey and are kept wondering to what extent Ms Shibata will go to keep up with her story.

Alongside the bias that women face in workplaces, the book also very interestingly explores urban loneliness. Shibata’s life is mechanical and solitary and it is not until she declares that she is ‘pregnant’ that she actually gets some timeto herself. It is somewhat poignant that even in a bid to take control of her life, Shibata has to take resort to a very gendered lie – one in which she is certain that she would be “let off the hook”.

But if you thought the story was about the “privileges of being pregnant”, Emi Yagi’s critique goes deeper than that. Through a small group of expecting mothers that Shibata meets at an aerobics class, we are given an insight into how cultural expectations around parenthood shape both men’s and women’s roles. Almost all the women, even with partners and a family, still find themselves alone when it comes to taking care of the child, post-birth. One of the new mothers, Hosono, launches into a page and a half long monologue of her struggles and her helplessness around taking care of her daughter while her husband “gets pissed off about how he has to work in the morning” when the child cries at night. It’s a difficult part to sit through and process.

As the story snails towards the end, it takes a rather unsettling, absurdist turn that almost blurs the line between fantasy and reality. But through all of it, you find yourself rooting for Shibata and her wry humour in this slice-of-life,meditative novel as she navigates through her very peculiar ‘pregnancy’.