For some it may seem that Mizuki’s behavior is somehow being justified or romanticized, but I really appreciated that her portrayal and that of her marriage, felt honest. I think if Kiyoshi and Mizuki’s relationship were more platonic then I would’ve enjoyed it a bit more.

I do think this is worth a read; pick it up at your local library, stare at that beautiful cover, savor it, and then decide if you want a physical copy after that.Perfection from the cherry blossoms on the beautiful cover, to the Tokyo setting, and everything in between, I loved it beyond just the plot.

Perhaps I'll try one more ARS tale to see if she's branded a formula that consistently leaves the reader hanging. Fault Lines is another of Siddons' fine examples of a seamlessly crafted story, wherein palpably developed characters find themselves in a plausible predicament. While I wasn’t reading these words on the page, I was listening with quite a bit of attention to how the words flowed and were used. She feels as if she gave up all her hopes and dreams to play a doting housewife and that is the last thing she ever wanted to become. In a sense, both mother and daughter are running away from a particularly bad home situation, but the mother, not having fully reached her potential even in mid-life, does not know she is running.

Merrick slowly realizes that she needs to start taking care of herself too, but it is a long, wild, journey. Mizuki is a Japanese housewife married to Tatsuya and living in a luxury apartment with their two beautiful children in the buzz, excitement and sparkle of Tokyo. Beautifully balanced with the present, we learn about her childhood in a series of interwoven narratives. Shrewd commentary on Japan's societal expectations of women - Washington Post You may also be interested in. the lives of all her touched and changed in different ways and Merritt finds herself as a person and not just a caretaker.

Mitzuki, the protagonist of Emily Itami’s brilliant debut novel Fault Lines, finds herself not only submerged in a world of expectation and comparison, but is also trying to face the cultural expectations that are placed on Mitzuki as a Japanese housewife.

Her children are wonderful, her husband's career affords them a stunning apartment with a balcony, and she wants for nothing. I would recommend to some who likes a better class of chic-lit with a half-decent language style and more concerned about feelings than fashion. Her husband abides by the cultural expectations, working hard every day and barely seeing their two children, Aki and Eri. Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books. They needed her and she was certainly not going to abandon them to an emotionally stifled life by choosing to run off with Kiyoshi to New York.