This book is about mysterious narrator with an obsession with a woman in her neighbourhood and how she manipulates her and stalks her. It was very atmospheric in parts and a bit creepy while the narrator tried to normalise her behaviour. Towards the finale it got very tense and I found myself reading faster and faster to get to the end. There were quite a few unanswered questions by the end which I know bother some people but in this book it worked well. I don’t think I’ll stop thinking about this one for a while now. I’ve never read this author before but I definitely will again.

I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but it was a pleasant surprise.

It has such a good pace, and it is very easy to read, it gets. A bit confusing at the beginning but later one it makes more sense. It is not that are many things happening, because nothing really happens in the story until near the end.

It is told from the point of view of The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, she seems quite obsessed with The Woman in the Purple Skirt and describes everything she does in and out of their work place as she follows her around. These two women are quite different, one lives her life by making her own decisions whereas the other one just goes with the flow without making changes whatsoever.

However, I feel there is something missing. Why is one woman so obsessed with the other one? Is it because she is jealous of her? Does she want what she has? There are a few unanswered questions there.

This book is essentially an observation record on The Woman In The Purple Skirt by The Woman In The Yellow Skirt.

At first, it seems like The Woman In The Purple Skirt is the weird one. But as I kept reading I realised, it’s The Woman In The Yellow Skirt that’s the weird one!😂

Creepy and eerie. But this is NOT a psychological thriller.  There are no gimmicks or twists.  But it feels creepy somehow.

After finishing the book, I still don’t know who the purple woman really was or why the woman in the yellow skirt was really so obsessed with her.    And I am also unsure about what the ending really mean. I am left with so many questions!

This book is not for everyone. But you might enjoy this book if you...
👉Want a quick, easy read that’s not too literary
👉Want to read something different/strange
👉Appreciate wry humour
👉Like dry, matter-of-factly writing
👉Like stories with darkly odd characters like Convenience Store Woman
👉Don’t mind being left with questions unanswered

This was an interesting read. The narrator who calls herself the woman in the yellow cardigan is lonely. She describes in details what she sees in the Woman in the Purple Skirt , she watches her and reader does the same thing too. Not much happens in this voyeuristic story and that what makes it interesting,

Well the only good thing that I have to say is that at least this was a short book. It was all just kind of pointless, so little really happens and we don’t get to scratch behind the surface of any of the characters. This book was just not for me at all.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt tells a story of obsession and stalking that keeps people on their toes while offering a finely crafted critique of society. We watch the woman in the purple skirt through the eyes of the narrator we don’t know much about. This woman is a bit of an odd type, but she manages to grab everyone’s attention. Our narrator is also obsessed with this woman.

Every day she watches what she is doing, checks and takes notes. We listen to the places she wanders around in the neighbourhood, the dessert she eats diligently every week, the bench she sits on in the park, the attitude of the children towards this woman over time, and all the work she has left after working for a while. After a while, we, like the narrator, come under the influence of the woman with the purple skirt, and we wonder what she’s doing.

Although the narrator is dying to meet the woman with the purple skirt, she doesn’t know how to meet her. On the other hand, she observes that the woman has not been working for a long time and somehow finds a way to get her into the hotel where she works so that she can meet her as a colleague. But things change after the woman in the purple skirt starts working at the hotel.

Thanks to our narrator’s endless curiosity and obsession, we read how the woman in the purple skirt has changed and what her colleagues’ gaze upon her has suddenly become. Of course, in the meantime, we learn a lot about Japan and watch the dynamics between employees and management in a hotel. This story also exquisitely exemplifies the “blaming the victim” situation in Japan. We read in amazement what happens when women stand against each other rather than together.

Genre: Literary Fiction | Fiction

Release Date: Expected 3rd June 2021

Everybody knows the Woman in the Purple Skirt - she appears neither old nor young, she is not attractive or successful, but she is oddly familiar and people notice her. But nobody notices the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. Nobody notices as she watches the Woman in the Purple Skirt sitting on her reserved bench in the park every day, eating the same cream bun. Nobody notices when she lures the Woman into working as a housekeeper in the same hotel as her and documents her affair with the manager as it spirals. The Woman in the Purple Skirt is being watched at all times - and now you're watching her too.

This story was eeily comforting and darkly intrusive all at once - it is a story in which nothing really happens and nothing is resolved - but it was so uniquely charming that I finished this fairly short novella in one sitting.

We watch our pseudo-celebrity along with our narrator, as she goes about her life, slowly finding her new relationships, new identities, new chapters of her journey and find ourselves drawn in, sharing the obsession about the Woman in the Purple Skirt. It's a story about the dangers of rumours, and how quickly they can spread, about how we are constantly watching others, about the way Women are always too ugly or too beautiful, and about the thin line between obsession and delusion.


RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Natsuko Inamura, Faber and Faber and NetGalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

An intriguing enough read but - for me - never digs deep enough to lift it beyond a curiosity. Would very much like to see what Imamura does next, however.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is an intriguing and at times unsettling novella that blends dark humour with the mundane in a way reminiscent of Convenience Store Woman.

A great little read that I finished in a couple of hours. It's a spiral of increasing oddness in the same vein as Convenience Store Woman and an interesting view of loneliness and voyeurism. There are times where the translation is mildly jarring, but on the whole she has a well developed voice whilst practically being a ghost.

I'm loving this trend for novellas about women living non-traditional lives, especially Japanese, and the exploration of themes of obsession, manipulation and the need for connection between women are infinitely interesting.

This short novel about obsession, translated from Japanese, is well worth a read.
The story revolves around two characters, The Woman in the Purple Skirt, and the narrator. From the outset it’s clear that the narrator is stalking The Woman in the Purple Skirt, so you as the reader become complicit with that. From watching her sit on a bench in the park, to leaving sachets of shampoo on the door of her house, its never really clear why the narrator is fixated on The Woman in the Purple Skirt, and if you’re expecting a resolution, you’ll be disappointed. That’s not to say this quick read isn’t worth it. It’s odd but it’s charming, and it certainly had me gripped all the way through.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is an unsettling novel about obsession, in which a woman who visits the same park bench every day is being watched. There is a woman in a purple skirt, a distinctive woman who seems to follow her own routine, sitting in the park every afternoon whilst children try and elicit a reaction from her. It becomes apparent that someone—the narrator—is watching her, but they want to actually know the woman, and so a strange descent into the world of the woman in the purple skirt begins.

This is a book that immediately drew me in, through its unsettling atmosphere and strange sense of observation. In some ways, the narration at least to begin with isn't different from other books introducing a quirky character, but it quickly becomes apparent that something is going on with the narrator, who is the one actually watching the titular woman. You're forced to join in the observation, watching what the narrator does, but unable to see any more. A lot of the suspense comes from not knowing why the narrator is obsessed with this woman, but also not quite being sure the rules of the game either.

For a book that raises so many questions, it is hard to put down, and as it's quite a short novel, it's quite easy to get lost in the world of the woman with the purple skirt until you emerge on the other side. I really enjoyed its distinctive atmosphere and the strange obsession at its heart.

The woman in the purple skirt is being followed and her every move watched; her stalker seems to have a plan for her but how will this end?

The novel is sedate and unhurried all whilst detailing the very real stalking of a woman who seems completelt unaware of what is going on. Both the protagonist and the woman in the purple skirt are seemingly flawed characters; the protagonist both lonely and obsessed, but I was strangely drawn to both women and finished the novel in one sitting as I had couldn't be left in suspense as to what was ultimately going to happen. A strange and gripping novel that I couldn't put down.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review