I found this an uneven book: at times upsetting, at others almost mundane. I struggled to see the writing as 'sharp, elegant prose' in this translation: it's plain and some sentences just don't parse well: 'I... then went for a quick drink at the club where the host who the woman from the bath-house said now had Eri's dog worked'.

At its best, though, this deals in an emotionally restrained way with a problematic mother-daughter relationship heightened by the presence of near death. The setting against the red light district of Tokyo exacerbates disconnected relationships and a sense of solitude only briefly alleviated by tentative connections. The ending is especially emotive with an unfinished poem saying what has been unsaid, but without sentimentality.

This ends up being a delicate evocation of these female lives: sensitive, restrained and undramatic. 3.5 stars

Gifted by Suzumi Suziki is a moving and thought-provoking story of a complex mother and daughter relationship. Despite a childhood where she felt almost a burden to a mother more interested in dreams of becoming a successful poet than guiding her daughter through life ,the book begins with the unnamed narrator looking after her terminally ill mother. With the daughter leaving home young and drifting into life as a Hostess in Tokyo's red light district she feels remote from her ailing mother,even while caring for her,and reflects on a life of drifting from club to club with only those in the same field of work as friends.

This is a moving,and often beautiful, book as the narrator learns more about her mother's life and her true feelings towards the daughter who always felt like a liability even as the older woman is on her deathbed. The tawdry reality of the red light district and the often damaged people who work in it plays a big part in the story,not least the loyalty amongst the workers and sometimes the surprising tenderness shown towards each other,often by people who have not known much of that from other sources in their lives.

3.5 rounded up.

I was surprised at how immersive and emotional this relatively tiny book was! Written in a dreamy, hazy style, without chapters, this is a slice-of-life examining a fractured relationship between a dying mother and her adult daughter. An artful, character-driven piece, we follow our unnamed narrator in her juxtaposed world of visiting her dying mother in the hospital and through the Kabukichō nightlife.

This book is driven almost entirely in vibes - there isn't a plot - and while those vibes feel sad, lonely, lost, at times, there's also an undercurrent of hope that stops the book feeling entirely bleak. There were some conversations and relationships that didn't make sense to me as a reader, largely because of the absence of plot. This could be a really great book for reading groups: short, readable, and highly discussable!

I liked the writing style a lot. I loved Eri's dog. But, I did come away from this wondering what, if anything, the book's purpose or message was.