Goodbye Cobwebs, Hello ‘Breasts and Eggs’ (A Review)

Okay, fine. I’m logging in. I see it. My Medium account is so dusty, I’m pretty sure I just saw a tumbleweed made of my own neglect roll across the screen frantically dusting off cobwebs with a keyboard. Life, you know? It’s been a whole thing.

But I’m back, and I’m here to talk about the thirty fourth book I’ve read this year: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami.

I read this on Google Play Books about three weeks ago, and it’s been simmering in my brain ever since. This book is a real conversation starter, and I have some thoughts.

First off, let’s talk about what this book does brilliantly. It’s split into two parts, and the first section is just… wow. It’s raw, it’s uncomfortably real, and it digs deep into the female body, the pressures placed on it, and the quiet, screaming anxieties that live under the skin.

We follow three women — sisters Natsu and Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko — as they navigate poverty, self image, and what it means to inhabit a woman’s body in a world that has a lot of opinions about it. Kawakami’s writing (shoutout to the translators, because the prose feels so natural) is like being inside someone’s most private thoughts. It’s messy, it’s looping, it’s profoundly human. I was completely hooked.

The second part fast-forwards a decade, focusing on Natsu, now a writer, and her intense, almost obsessive journey into the possibility of single motherhood. This is where the book asks its biggest, most challenging questions. What does it mean to choose motherhood? What does family mean outside of traditional structures? The conversations Natsu has about sperm donation, the ethics of bringing a child into the world, and her own loneliness are thought provoking on a level I rarely encounter. The message is powerful, and it sticks with you.

And that’s why the ending kind of… left me baffled.

I gave this book a three point five out of five, and the reason for the half-point dock is entirely in the execution of the finish. After hundreds of pages of deep, philosophical meandering and building this immense internal pressure, the conclusion felt like it just… dissipated. Like a balloon with a slow leak. It wasn’t that it was ambiguous — I can handle ambiguous — it was that it felt strangely abrupt and disconnected from the emotional weight of everything that came before. It left me staring at the last page, not with a sense of poignant wonder, but with a genuine, “Wait, that’s it?” It was a finale that didn’t feel like a culmination, just a stop.

So, where does that leave me with Breasts and Eggs ?

I’m still thinking about it. A book that makes you wrestle with it, that leaves you a little frustrated because you cared so much, is often more valuable than a neatly wrapped package you forget in a week. The questions it raises about our bodies, our choices, and our freedom are worth the price of admission alone. Just be ready for a journey that might leave you wanting a different destination.

Anyway, it’s good to be back. Maybe don’t let the dust settle for so long next time. Books, like good conversations, are always better when shared. Catch you on the next page.