Trish's Reviews > All the Lovers in the Night

All the Lovers in the Night is a captivating and compelling read, completely bingeable and impossible to put down. You’ll read it in a sitting or two or three and then it’ll be over and for days after you’ll find yourself wondering about the physics of light and colors, reflections, relationships, what’s real, and what’s worth living for.

In recognizable Japanese fashion, this is a quiet, contemplative novel with a signature Mieko Kawakami flair. It’s chock full of social commentary, observations and strong opinions on womanhood, motherhood, sex, depression, the trouble with fitting in and standing out, breaking social norms, and taking time to heal internal, invisible wounds - both faded and fresh.

There are so many different kinds of women in modern society— each one thinking they’ve found the recipe for success and happiness, each one trying to bottle and sell the formula. It’s usually well-intentioned, but always so futile. What works for some, won’t work for others. What makes us happy now isn’t guaranteed to make us happy forever. Our jobs, relationships, hobbies are all subject to this inevitability. And that’s both depressing and exciting.

I guess change — in the weather, our likes and dislikes, our interests and hobbies, our priorities, our relationships — is the one constant we can count on. It’s nice to know that just like the good times, the trying times in life won’t last forever. Like the tides, our lives ebb and flow, we just have to have the strength and resilience to ride it out, ideally with a friend or two by our side.

Read/Add to TBR if you like:
* Japanese literature
* The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
* complex female friendships
* cafe romances and hot, sweaty summer days that pass by in a dreamlike haze
* a sad, depressed, lonely AND alone female protagonist prone to day drinking and falling asleep in public
* woman in her thirties having an existential crisis
* feminist rants