Thoughtful ... The first half of Sisters in Yellow epitomizes what makes Kawakami’s writing so great, melding incisive social commentary with a cast of memorable, scrappy, put-upon young people. But an abrupt tonal shift late in the novel, something seemingly endemic to all Kawakami’s work, results in the protagonist evincing a rather dizzying change in temperament and the narrative meandering its way through fits and starts toward a disappointingly rote dénouement. The serialized origin of “Sisters in Yellow” gives the story a spontaneous authenticity and whimsy, yet also feels responsible for the novel’s shortcomings, namely its overly drawn-out second half and the sidelining of a major character ... An enjoyable 12-episode season that could’ve been an eight-episode masterpiece.
Gritty, noirish, almost Richard Price-like ... The book displays a gift for confident, if rambling, storytelling, and the details pile up convincingly. Yet the novel refused to come alive in my hands ... Texture, depth and grainy intellection are absent. The sentences swim and skim like surface bugs ... Kawakami’s talent is wider than it is deep ... Despite my mixed feelings about Sisters in Yellow, I have a feeling I won’t forget Hana, perpetually running up life’s down escalator, willing to try anything to scrape together a little happiness.
A fascinating girl’s-eye view of what it means to grow up in Japan without wealth, and the moral (and physical) sacrifices you must make to attain it ... This is not the Japan you find in novels about cats, cafés and bookshops. Kawakami draws back this cosy façade to reveal the grimy reality underneath — and she does it with consummate style. With Sisters in Yellow, she proves she is still the most exciting Japanese novelist at work today.
Taylor and Yoshio smoothly translate the story, which has a grim arc of inevitability. But, given how clear-cut the crisis is, the novel feels overlong. Each woman is challenged in her own way, but since Hana’s perspective is the only one given, other characters’ struggles don’t have the same depth. An ambitious, imperfectly executed tale of tested sisterhood.
