Fault Lines: Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa First Novel Award

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Itame explores a woman’s loss of identity and purpose with humour and honesty, subtly exposing the cracks that occur in the societal roles we so often fall into with little thought – until a fault line appears and we choose to break away. Described as a Japanese setting and a story like Sally Rooney’s, we dive into a housewife’s world in Tokyo. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it’s tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. Mizuki, Itami’s protagonist, lives in Tokyo with her husband, Tatsuya, and their two children, daughter Eri and son Aki.

On the surface, Mizuki has it all: a handsome husband, two beautiful children, and a lovely home in bustling and frenetic Tokyo. Itami, who grew up in Tokyo but now lives in London, examines carefully the line between insider and outsider in Japanese culture.Itami’s narrator tells us late in the book about a revelatory year spent perfecting her English in America. That’s the image I had in my mind while I was immersed in the world of Emily Itami’s beautifully written debut novel. True, Itami captures the magic of Tokyo and makes it part of the couple’s relationship, complete with cherry blossoms, tiny bars and excellent food. Skipped so much in that, her sister and daughter disappear from the pages for the last third of the book totally killed the vibe. I will admit, however, is that the reader’s thick British accent is not what I would’ve envisioned for this novel.

When Andrea at Main Street Books said she'd loved this literary novel with echoes of Madame Bovary and a forty-ish female protagonist rethinking her whole life, I snapped it right up. But is the promise of deep and gratifying love enough for Mizuki to risk the stable-if-unsatisfying home life she shares with her husband and children? Itami captures the magic of Tokyo and makes it part of the couple's relationship, complete with cherry blossoms, tiny bars and excellent food. This started out as a four stars read for me, but I thought the ending was kind of weak, but a "safe" one. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.Now she wonders if she made the right choices and what her life would be like if she had never married him. For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. The fault line is in the earth in CA and the fault lines are in the lives of the characters - mother Merritt, her daughter Glynn, and Merritt’s sister Laura.

I don’t really know how right now, but somehow I feel when I need its message, it will be waiting for me. When a family argument sends her lovely, fragile daughter, Glynn, running from her Atlanta home to her Aunt Laura in Hollywood, Merritt is compelled to follow. By warning, well before the crisis, that financial innovation was making the world riskier, Rajan had already proved he was no cheerleader for “markets know best”. When she meets Kiyoshi, a successful restaurateur, something quickly develops between them and she is once again able to think about life beyond the domestic sphere.

It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether it would be more fun to throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband or hanging up laundry. According to Goodreads, you may like this book if you have read the following: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn, Early Departures by Justin A.