The most likable thing about this novel is that there are no male characters in it. It's all women. Women deciding to leave their houses along with two young daughters to live on their own, to have a breast implement surgery, and to have a baby via science without any partner. 

I have been saying this for long that there is more to Japanese contemporary literature than Haruki Murakami. Before, Breasts and eggs, I read the International booker shortlisted The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, a dystopian novel set in an island where things go instinct one by one. And before that, I read Sayuka Murata's convenient store woman, which was all about a young woman searching her identity and wondering if it's okay if you don't want things that are considered 'normal'. 

I have also read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. Both books helped me peek into Japanese culture and what it means to be a woman there.  Now coming to Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, the book is divided into two parts, in part one, Natsuku's sister Makiko, who is a single mother decides to go for a boob job. Now, this came as shock to Naatsuku considering the fact that Makiko's financial condition once made her contemplate applying for welfare allowance. Makiko's teenage daughter is not talking to her because of this decision. The part ends abruptly without telling us what happened in the end. The parts in which the mother-daughter duo lives in a dingy apartment with limited finance have been depicted well. There is so much of poverty but the author makes sure we become part of Makoki's and Natsuku's journey without feeling sorry for them. 

And then comes the second part. Here we see Natsuki with her book out. Her collection of short stories is a best seller and she is making a decent leaving by writing columns for different publications. She doesn't have a partner but she doesn't feel her life is incomplete. But as the novel progresses, we see her craving a child. 

But here's a thing. She can't have sex. She tried with her boyfriend in her early twenties and did not like it , hence concluding that it was something she could totally live without. Thankfully, in 2016, when she was 38, she had the option of artificial insemination. She frequents a website where she meets some people who were born by this process. They all are searching for their true identity ( biological father) wondering why they were even born. They ask themselves questions that probably nobody has answers to. Like ' Why are we even born ', ' Do people see their babies as humans or something they made? 

Natsuki ponders hard on these point but then she sees her editor's baby and her conviction to have a child of her own grew even stronger. 

The novel talks about womanhood, motherhood, and Autonomy in contemporary Japan. In a fast pace country, where the number of young people and babies is declining at an alarming rate, women have taken charge of their own lives and bodies. 

Natsuku is not your average woman but this world will be a better place if we have more like her. At times, you will find the novel unsettling but once you are done, your mind will raise an important question like, do we women really need men their lives ?