Sisters in Yellow, Mieko Kawakami
Sisters in Yellow, Mieko Kawakami
List: $27.00 | Sale: $18.89
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Sisters in Yellow

Author: Mieko Kawakami, Laurel Taylor, Hitomi Yoshio

Narrator: Annie Q. Riegel

Unabridged: 15 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/17/2026


Synopsis

From Mieko Kawakami, award-winning author of Breasts and Eggs, comes a bold novel of sacrifice and the tumultuous bonds of sisterhood, set in the gritty Tokyo of the 1990s.

“I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami.” —Haruki Murakami

“To read her work is to feel that she is not afraid of anything at all.” —The New York Times Book Review

Hana has nothing – she’s fifteen years old and living in a tiny apartment in a suburb of Tokyo with her young mother, a hostess at a local dive bar. They have no money, no security. Then Kimiko appears.

Kimiko is older, a bright light in Hana’s dark world. Together they set up Lemon, a bar that, despite its shabby setting and seedy clientele, becomes a haven for Hana. Suddenly Hana has a job she loves, friends to share her days with, and the glittering promise of money. She feels like a normal girl. She feels invincible.

But in the narrow alleys of Sangenjaya, nothing is as it seems. Soon all of Hana’s hope, her optimism, and her drive will be pushed to the limit . . .

A story of enduring friendship and deep betrayal, Sisters in Yellow is a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties that confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation.

About The Author

MIEKO KAWAKAMI is the acclaimed author of the internationally best-selling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Time’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Her other novels, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, include Heaven, shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and All the Lovers in the Night, a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In 2024, Sisters in Yellow won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. Her books, translated into over forty languages, are known for their insights into the female body, and philosophical questions surrounding gender, class, and ethics in modern society. Born in Osaka, Kawakami lives in Tokyo, Japan.LAUREL TAYLOR is a translator, poet, and researcher. She has translated works by Kaori Fujino, Minae Mizumura, Shibasaki Tomoka, and Aoko Matsudo, among others.HITOMI YOSHIO is the translator of Natsuko Imamura's This Is Amiko, Do You Copy? and the co-translator of Mieko Kawakami's Ashes of Spring.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mai on January 30, 2026

Japanuary 2026 #4 I very vaguely remember reading BREASTS AND EGGS. I remember thinking it was okay. And while I nearly loved the beginning of this novel, it sort of petered out at the end. Hana is horribly naïve, falling under Kimiko's spell. To be fair, her own mother is often absent, spending time......more

Goodreads review by ✰ Charlotte ✰ on October 21, 2023

Good God. What an intense book. Devoured the last 300 pages in a day and I'm still sobbing while typing this down on Goodreads😢. It's so different to her previous works yet so similar. 銀座。三軒茶屋。二十代と四十代の女性。夏。金に困る。母子家庭。無性愛の主人公。キャバ嬢。水商売。絶望。(Ginza. Sangenjaya. Women in their 20s and 40s. Summer. Financia......more

Goodreads review by Yahaira on February 02, 2026

my disappointment is immeasurable ------------------ Thanks to the publisher for the arc One of my most anticipated releases of this year (I have seriously been waiting for years) from one of my favorite authors; this one hurts. Was there a minimum word count?  I’ll try to keep this short, which is adv......more

Goodreads review by Maarten on October 13, 2023

Wederom een briljante Kawakami!......more

Goodreads review by Kate on February 18, 2026

Sisters in Yellow begins at the end. Our protagonist, Hana, comes across the name of an old friend in the newspaper and it triggers flashbacks to her life two decades previously. Hana struggles to remember exactly what happened and seeks out the women who she lived with to assuage her guilty conscie......more


Quotes

• A New Yorker Best Book of 2026 So Far • A Los Angeles Times Selection for Heavy-Hitting New Books for Springtime • A Crime Reads Selection for Best Crime Novels, Mysteries, and Thrillers of March 2026 • An Apple Best of the Month Selection •

"Gritty, noirish, almost Richard Price-like. . . . The book displays a gift for confident . . . storytelling, and the details pile up convincingly. . . . 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."
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"Engrossing."
The New Yorker

"An absorbing story about teenagers on the margins of society struggling for a sense of control."
—Vulture

"I will take a novel like this any day over a meticulously planned, overly predictable thriller. . . . Sisters in Yellow is an enjoyable 12-episode season."
—Boston Globe

"Mieko Kawakami wowed the literary world with her critically acclaimed Breasts and Eggs, and now with Sisters in Yellow she proves the same skill and versatility within the crime genre. In what I already predict as one of the best crime novels of the decade, a group of young women fall under the charismatic influence of a flighty scammer and fall deeper and deeper into the trap of criminalized poverty. Epic, brutal, and stunning."
—CrimeReads

"Sisters in Yellow is 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. . . . Kawakami draws back [Japan's] 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."
The Times (London)

"An intimate and striking novel of poverty and loneliness."
Book Riot

"Kawakami’s novel is about the painful realities of a rapidly-modernizing world, the difficulty of creating community on the fringes, and the ways we struggle to care for each other and ourselves. . . . In Mieko Kawakami’s hands this is . . . a masterpiece."
Lit Hub

"A pacy story of friendship, longing, and betrayal."
Electric Lit

"Kawakami unfurls a remarkable noir-tinged tale of female desperation. . . . As the story hurtles toward chilling revelations in the present, Kawakami masterfully builds tension. . . . The author scales new heights with this gripping and propulsive novel."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Part coming-of-age novel, part crime story, part commentary on poverty, responsibility, relationships and survival, Sisters in Yellow asks uncomfortable questions and gives uncomfortable answers, burrowing deep into the psyches of not only its protagonist but also its potential audience."
BookPage (starred review)

"Every scene in this incisive, relentless tale of survival and the stunting of lives is mesmerizing in its intensity."
Booklist