RaveColumbia Journal... invaluable exposure to a necessary account of the loneliness experienced by women within urban, patriarchal contexts; furthermore, the novel provides Tsushima’s longtime fans with closure for her premature death from lung cancer in 2016 ... A great deal of this novel’s strength derives from Tsushima infusing her characters’ interactions with the honesty and emotional integrity of her lived experience of single motherhood. The fragility with which the narrator embodies the role of her daughter’s protector and nurturer speaks platitudes to Tsushima’s revelatory capabilities, even as a young writer ... This promise of transformation is the final gift that Yuko Tsushima imparts on both her characters and her readers, a contribution to the living even in death.
