NP

Fantastical, almost timeless quality . . . [Yoshimoto's] ability to make everyday events seem romantic is a rare gift. --Harper's Bazaar

Yoshimoto hits some of the same notes that a previous generation's literary masters (say, Kawabata or Tanizaki) might sound, and yet the effect seems artless, spontaneous and wonderfully fresh. --Los Angeles Times Book Review

The disturbing, ironic, relentless clarity of Kazami's voice casts a spell . . . Yoshimoto has given readers a snapshot of a generation of Japanese women caught between traditional expectations that define them in male-dominated marriages and their desire to remain young, pure and free. --Denver Post

[An] ethereally mesmerizing . . . novel of Japan's Generation X. --Chicago Sun Times

Banana Yoshimoto hits the generational mark again . . . N.P. is essential reading for everyone who has ever felt lost while trying to find their lives through coffee and credit cards . . . N.P. focuses on death and love and, most of all, overcoming loss and realizing that not everything is explainable in words. --Detroit Free Press

Deeper than trendy . . . miraculous . . . [a] poignant achievement that draws its power from an atmosphere of earnestness--from that honesty of youth, untouched by cynicism . . . Deceptively simple. --Toronto Globe and Mail

Charming . . . Positively exuberant . . . The narrators of her novels exude pure optimism, even as they suffer. --Washington City Paper

Yoshimoto throws four trendy young Japanese into a quandary that involves the reader instantly. Swept up by her heroine, Kazami Kano, off we run through the streets of Tokyo . . . Almost one with the girl, we feel the oppressive summer heat, her loneliness, blind trust and choking fear. --Milwaukee Journal

Japan's leading pop novelist follows her successful debut with an ambitious novel of darker themes--incest, suicide, and the supernatural--that recalls more classic Japanese fiction . . . A contemporary, hip treatment . . . that nonetheless resonates with echoes of the past. --Kirkus Reviews

Compelling and clever, Yoshimoto writes with the sort of lucidity that usually takes hours and hours to appear so effortless . . . But what really makes N.P. click . . . are the indomitable personalities of the main figures. --Trenton (NJ) Times

Every bit as good as Yoshimoto's first book . . . perhaps better. -- South Bend Tribune