--- description: Find out why Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami is on TIME's list of the must-read books from this year. title: 'Breasts and Eggs' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt21d77fa93bca4bd4/698a1406b3fce33b2f0c75e8/best-books-2020-Breasts-and-Eggs.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 09, 2020 # Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Thirty-year-old Natsu lives in Tokyo, having moved from Osaka to pursue her dream to be a writer, when her sister Makiko and young niece Midoriko come to visit. But this isn’t a typical family reunion—in Mieko Kawakami’s novel, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, Makiko is in town to find a clinic for a breast enhancement procedure and, for reasons she can’t quite understand, her daughter has recently stopped speaking to her. In Midoriko’s silence, the women become attuned to their own fears related to growing older and their changing bodies. It’s a sharply observed and heartbreaking portrait of what it means to be a woman, in Japan and beyond. The second half of the novel finds the characters still grappling with these struggles 10 years later. In describing Natsu’s life as a childless woman at odds with an identity she did not anticipate, the novel highlights the anxieties that accompany contemporary womanhood in aching and wonderfully absurd terms. **Buy Now:** _Breasts and Eggs_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9781609455873 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609455878/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time-books-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1609455878&linkId=b498dc319b3bdc2a8b28ca141b83b1ef "undefined") These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2020/5904431/breasts-and-eggs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2020/5904431/breasts-and-eggs/"},"headline":"'Breasts and Eggs' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2020","datePublished":"2020-11-09T20:07:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:44:31.489Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2020/5904431/breasts-and-eggs/","keywords":["E-Commerce","Books","list"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt21d77fa93bca4bd4/698a1406b3fce33b2f0c75e8/best-books-2020-Breasts-and-Eggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt21d77fa93bca4bd4/698a1406b3fce33b2f0c75e8/best-books-2020-Breasts-and-Eggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2020/5904431/breasts-and-eggs/","name":"'Breasts and Eggs' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2020"}}]}] ```