Glimpses into the lives of 8 very different Japanese women, mostly saturated with claustrophobic, bootless yearning isolation, whether it is the whore cheated by a lover or the career woman who can't get respect from younger male colleagues and where the men aren't complete ciphers they can only be entirely trusted to be selfish. ( )

This is an anthology by contemporary Japanese women writers. As noted in the introduction, these authors are all popular, award-winning writers in Japan but have been virtually unknown because their work has been previously unpublished in English. The collection seems to be arranged roughly according to age-progression ( The first two stories have teen protagonists, the last a woman approaching fifty) and is centered around "the exploration of female identity in a rapidly changing society." As with any anthology, I liked some of these bold stories more than others - I think the story I found most moving is a sexually explicit story called "Piss" by Yuzuki Muroi. I also liked "The Unfertilized Egg" by Junko Hasegawa. ( )