First published 2025
Riki eats the same discount boiled egg for lunch every day in Tokyo. She left her job at a nursing home in Hokkaido for better opportunities, but temp work barely pays her bills. When her friend finds an agency offering substantial money for egg donation, they both rush to interview. The agency has bigger plans. They pair Riki with Motoi Kusaoke, a former ballet star, and his wife Yuko, who have spent years trying to conceive. The company exploits a legal loophole to arrange surrogacy, technically illegal in Japan. Riki accepts a down payment to carry their child. She even resembles Yuko physically, making the arrangement seem perfect. But complications multiply as everyone around them weighs in. Yuko's sex-obsessed yet asexual best friend has strong opinions. Motoi's controlling prima ballerina mother interferes. Even the sex worker Riki visits for therapy offers advice. The boundaries between client and surrogate blur as economic desperation meets reproductive desire. Kirino examines how money shapes relationships around motherhood and bodily autonomy, revealing the costs of survival in modern Japan.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, social-issues, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: forced-proximity, found-family
Setting: Tokyo, Hokkaido
Period: 21st-century
352 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: infertility