Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto

I don’t remember where I saw this title but I was intrigued by the author’s name.  Who names their kid “Banana”? 

This edition was translated from Japanese and the title was “Moshi Moshi Shimokitazawa”.

It is a coming-of-age story about a young girl whose father dies in a tragic situation.  Yoshi talks about the heartbreak that she and her mother feel as they try to move on. They can’t even stay in the same house that the three of them lived in. She has dreams that her father is calling from his cell phone.

Yoshi is a young girl in her early twenties whose father doted on her as a little girl and even as she became an adult. She never knew her parents were growing apart from each other until her mother told her after he died.  As she matures and tries to figure out what to do next, she comes to learn other things about her father and her mother.

The author wrote intensely from her characters heart and soul.  You almost feel Yoshi’s hurt as she tries to find some normalcy in her life.  She even contemplated how her mother must feel differently as the woman who lost a husband then the girl who lost her father. 

I really enjoyed reading this novel and could not put it down.  I finished it in three days.  Now I want to know more about the small town Shimokitazawa.