Diary of a Void: A Novel

What did I just read? I still don't know, but I did have a good time. This was so well done. I was still guessing all the way to the end whether or not this woman was really pregnant. Shibata isn't a very likable character, and I really love when a book can still be so enjoyable even though I spent most of the book disliking the narrator.Her choices throughout the book were so interesting. I still don't know who she told about the pregnancy and who she kept it from. For a little while there I wasn't even sure if SHE knew whether or not she was pregnant. It was so good. It almost got spooky there for a little bit. I don't know if that was the purpose, or just the subject matter for me personally. But man, I am absolutely going to be thinking about this for a while.

The idea is compelling: an overworked thirty-ish woman in a Japanese cardboard tube factory is tired of being treated like her male co-workers' maid, so one day she says she can't clean up their coffee cups and cigarette cups because, as she's pregnant -- she isn't -- the smell nauseates her.Her work life immediately changes; she gets permission to leave "early," is relieved of burdensome cleaning tasks.Then, in a seamless segue into fantasy or magical realism, she begins to think of her pregnancy as real, even as she stuffs cloths in her front to create a bump, and begins to pamper herself as her culture believes a pregnant woman should do.Unfortunately, the writing is unimaginative, unlike the plot. The narrator's absorption in herself started to become wearing, and it seemed as though the majority of sentences contained the word "I" once or more than once. And interestingly, despite that, the narrator seemed hard to fathom; we never really know much about her other than her routines and what she eats. The one thing that is clear is that the world she inhabits is artificial, brutal, loud, bright, and utterly unconducive to nurturing a self. Her false pregnancy is the only doorway into a room for that self.

If you aren’t sure about this book, let me tell you it’s sooo worth it. I read it within two days but I’m a slow reader. It’s small so you can easily carry it with you anywhere. If you look at the photo it’s my book recommendation for this book.

I rushed to buy this one because the synopsis sounded refreshing, but what a bore. I guess that’s the whole “void” premise, but reading this was painful. I would have rather watched paint dry.I understand the translator’s decision to preserve the Japanese culture throughout, but I feel you need to be very familiar with it to truly grasp the emotions the author attempted to render.Made it two-thirds of the way through before realizing the story was not going to pick up and that I had three other books that had to be better than this waiting to be read on my nightstand. Total miss for me on this one.

Conceiving a human is the most creative thing g a human body can do...unless it writes a book like this one! It was a joy to join this fiction within a fiction...and I'm so grateful to the translators.

I loved this story for both the quirky premise and insight into Japanese culture. Really good -I highly recommend it!

Interesting and unique premise, good writing, held my attention till the end. Recommend.

I loved how emptiness was repeated so many times throughout the book. How women are considered incomplete without children, how the paper cores are everywhere and hold everything together but are rarely considered, how the unequal division of labor post-delivery is isolating and how sexist systems are perpetuated and how lots of people form loneliness-amplifying superficial relationships.But lastly I loved how potentially meaningful our main character’s friendships are with other women and importantly moms. As an American reader I laughed about the butternut squash. Literally butternut squash is all over the place in our grocery stores but because the mommy blogosphere is so America-centric no wonder a Japanese reader may be confused with this analogy to fetal size.

The main character Shibata is a woman in her 30s, single, works for a paper core manufacturer and lives in a tiny apartment in Tokyo. She always works late hours, arrives home drained and tired with hardly any time and energy for social life. The impression the reader gets is that of a very tired, overworked and lonely woman without any notable highlights in her life.Everything changes when Shibata is finally so fed up with being assigned the task to wash up the dirty coffee cups left after office meetings that on the spur of the moment, she decides to be pregnant.To her surprise, everyone believes her. What is more, after her announcement everything starts to change for the better. She is allowed to leave her office at 5 o'clock every day and hence has enough time on her hands to cook healthy meals, take long baths, watch movies on Amazon Prime and take long walks in the evenings. She even makes friends with other pregnant women when she signs up for an aerobics class. They also meet outside of their class and support each other during their pregnancies.While everyone starts treating her with care, some people can't help themselves asking prying questions about her private life since Shibata has never mentioned any boyfriend or husband, but she always manages to dodge these questions. Being pregnant puts Shibata into the limelight. Suddenly people see her and make her feel important, valued and supported.In the course of her "pregnancy" Shibata puts on weight and starts having the same symptoms as pregnant women. Slowly, the boundaries between reality and imagination start to blur and Shibata finds herself in a situation from which there is no going back anymore.I really enjoyed reading this rather short novel. The main theme is loneliness and what it can do to you. It is the story of a woman who leads a very monotonous and uneventful life that almost solely revolves around the company she works for. Her lie about being pregnant changes everything, she becomes a part of society and is no longer just a bystander. But one lie leads to ten others and soon Shibata is caught in the middle of a web of lies from which she can't seem to escape anymore.The only thing I didn't really like were the detailed descriptions of the production process of paper cores, which I found rather boring. But all in all, this novel is a great read and highly recommendable.

The plot idea is interesting but for me it lacked and ups and downs and just went one note pretty much until the last few pages of the end where the entire message of the book is posed, I suppose.

I thought this had a lot more promise than what was delivered. It could have been really good but actually quite boring and ambiguous. Feminist point came through well but I think something was lost in translation.

This book came in a very good condition, there was zero damages. And about the story , I absolutely loved it. It was so funny and I could find myself really enjoying it.

Very interesting read, makes you think about how most people would find pregnancy a challenging time, but our narrator viewed it as a respite. Would recommend.