Gifted by Suzumi Suzuki

This is a novella that has either very little going on or quite a lot going on. The possibility exists that it is more of a commentary on the state of Japan and the options that it holds for women over a generation is how I choose to see it--especially after watching the documentary, Black Box Diaries this year, which chronicles a young female journalist's arduous quest to bring her well-connected rapist to justice--which doesn't quite happen, and highlights the protection that Japanese society affords sexual predators. There is an unnamed narrator who's story is told--she is twenty-five and living in Tokyo’s entertainment district. She works as a hostess in a bar, but soon quits her job so she can care for her mother, who is dying of cancer. The mother briefly moves into the narrator’s apartment, but in a matter of days her condition deteriorates enough that she is admitted to the hospital. The narrator’s time is then filled with hospital visits, walks around the city, and occasional contact with friends, mostly by text. These friends are young women who are sex workers or, like the narrator, have jobs that cater to men’s desire for entertainment and company, sometimes leading to sex, sometimes not. Her mother's story is a bit different from this, but the theme is the same--that in Japan, women are second class citizens with no where equal rights to men, and subservient to them in many ways.