Kakigori Summer, Emily Itami
Kakigori Summer, Emily Itami
List: $28.99 | Sale: $20.29
Club: $14.49

Kakigori Summer
A Novel

Author: Emily Itami

Narrator: Ami Okumura Jones

Unabridged: 10 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Mariner Books

Published: 06/10/2025


Synopsis

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPRA wry and tender novel from the author of Fault Lines about three very different sisters reunited in adulthood for one short summer in coastal Japan, navigating domestic life with their sharp-edged grandmother and decidedly avoiding resurfaced memories of their mother's disappearance--for readers of Hello Beautiful and Blue Sisters."This novel had me hooked from the first chapter. Three sisters, Japan, the complexities of family bonds, love and loss. I got totally immersed in their lives. It's funny and insightful and poignant and uplifting . . . And a rare accolade—the most excellent and satisfying ending!" --Karen Angelico, author of Everything We AreRei, Kiki, and Ai are half-Japanese, half-British sisters divided by distance and circumstance. Ambitious Rei works in finance in London; Kiki is the single mother of a young son, working in a retirement home in Tokyo; and Ai, the youngest, is a peripatetic Japanese music idol. Bonded by the loss of their parents and their shared haafu identity, the sisters rely on each other as family, far-flung as they are.When Ai is embroiled in a scandal, Rei and Kiki pause their own lives to rescue their baby sister. Over the course of a summer spent in their childhood home on the Japanese coast, the sisters will reunite with their sharp-edged grandmother, care for Kiki’s irrepressible son, and silently worry about Ai, all while carefully not talking about the circumstances of their mother’s death fifteen years before. But silence between sisters can only last for so long…A transporting and redemptive novel, Kakigori Summer is a hopeful meditation on love and loss, sisterhood and family, and a profound exploration of the stories we tell ourselves about our past that enable us to move forward into the future.

About Emily Itami

Emily Itami is the author of Fault Lines. She grew up in Tokyo and returned there to live when her children were young. She now lives in London. She has been published widely as a freelance journalist and travel writer.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dani on February 08, 2025

took me a week to finish this because i kept stopping. it felt like a tv show because the story is slowly unravelling. but it is a beautifully written novel that dives deep into the messy, complicated, and unbreakable bond between three sisters. it's set against the nostalgic backdrop of a Japanese......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on July 21, 2025

Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami is like diving into a triple scoop of nostalgia, sisterhood, and seaside scandal. We follow the three “haafu” sisters—Rei, Kiki, and Ai—reuniting in their coastal Japanese childhood home after the youngest sister Ai, a pop idol, lands herself in a headline-making scanda......more

Goodreads review by Bella Azam on June 26, 2025

Kakigori Summer exploring on the sisterhood of 3 sisters born out of mixed parentage, to a Japanese mother and an English father. One parent missing from their life and another completely abandoned them in a far away country. Splitting into three separate narrative from the 3 sisters, this book show......more

Goodreads review by Sue on July 29, 2025

Kakigori Summer was tell into 3 narratives that is Rei the eldest, Kiki and Ai the youngest. Firstly, we will know the Rei’s story where she received a death-based text from Ai, following a call from Kiki. She was informed that Ai will lost her job because of national disgrace. Ai had been caught do......more

Goodreads review by Hudson on June 15, 2025

i truly am a sucker for books about sisterhood💗💗 it was a bit boring at times and i thought the direction was weird at times but overall very heartwarming......more