I can't remember the last time I highlighted so many passages in a novel. Emily Itami has a very bright future ahead of her.

Mizuki is a Japanese housewife and mother of two children. Her husband is a hardworking man that works long hours but he's a good husband and father. She has everything she could ever ask for so why is she so unhappy?

"Is it normal to fluctuate so quickly between feeling tender toward your husband and fervently wishing him a violent death?"

After a decade of marriage she feels invisible. Her husband rarely looks at her anymore and their sex life is non-existent. She never imagined getting married and having children would be so lonely. She feels as if she gave up all her hopes and dreams to play a doting housewife and that is the last thing she ever wanted to become.

"Some days I can't quite work out how I got here; I opted for the guy, I opted for the kids, I just didn't realize that meant waving goodbye to everything else."

So when she has a random encounter with an attractive man she is instantly captivated by the attention he showers her. He really listens to her, they banter and laugh easily with one another and she finds that she is not only sexually attracted to this man but she has also become emotionally attached to him which makes her feelings even more complicated. Deep down she knows what she is doing is wrong but she is too weak to fight it.

"I love being able to tell him exactly what I'm thinking. Not having to put it through the good-parenting filter I use for my children, or the perpetual war communication calculations I do with Tatsu, or the edited, rose-tinted truth I feed my mother."

I have a feeling many women are going to be able to relate to Mizuki as I know I certainly did. There have been days that I resent my husband, that my kid drives me out of my mind, and it takes every bit of my patience just to hold it together and not scream at the top of my lungs. If you've ever had days like that then this is one to pick up. Mizuki is also incredibly witty and funny which helps alleviate any sense of gloom a book about infidelity could inevitably have. I found the ending fitting and satisfying. All in all this is a wonderful debut that shouldn't be missed. 4.5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for my copy.

This was a quick read but it made me laugh, reflect and really want to visit Tokyo! I connected with the narrator, and was left wanting to hear more of her story. One thing I loved about this book is that Tokyo was also a character, and the city felt so alive as I read about it - I was completely transported. This was beautifully written as well, and I truly enjoyed it.

Mizuki, the main character, has two beautiful young children with a responsible nanny. She lives in a comfortable apartment and has nice clothes. She notes her husband is wonderful. Tatsu is in good shape, has a great job, doesn't drink too much, doesn't beat her, doesn't squander money on cars and is a loving father to the kids. Sounds perfect to most.

But there's a catch. Her husband works huge hours and makes her feel "invisible." One night after feeling ignored, she took off and ended up at a bar. That's where she met an attractive,, exciting man. She loved her two kids and her husband gave her a good life. However, she felt like she was "the ham in a sandwich." There was a dilemma of what to do in this situation. However, she didn't hesitate when this new man asked to see her again...and again. She said, "Having a secret makes me feel like nobody owns me."

Parts of this book were interesting about pieces of Japanese cultural traits and the idea of living on a fault line. Yet, it felt like this story was clearly meant for women in their early 20s or 30s that can relate to what it's like when you're "not even middle age yet." It's not a long book but I didn't fly through the pages as this "ancient lady" was a distance apart.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this copy with an expected release date of September 7, 2021.

I need to talk about that gorgeous cover first--it's my favorite part of this book and what drew me to it in the first place.

Fault Lines is the story of Mizuki, a bored Japanese housewife and mother who would nearly literally throw herself over her high rise balcony than continue living the same life every day.

Until she meets Kiyoshi and finds the excitement she's been lacking. But she soon realizes that no one can lead two lives successfully.

Though it didn't really hold my interest the way I had hoped it would, I did enjoy this book. There are plenty of books about bored American suburban housewives, but Itami's world never felt as whiny and annoying as those and I loved Tokyo as a setting. Her writing is breezy--Mizuki's mind is never still--and the prose flows beautifully. I'm looking forward to more books by this author.

Special thanks to William Morrow, for proving this copy through the Book Club Girls.

Mizuki is a housewife in Tokyo, in the kind of marriage where she barely sees her constantly working husband and when she does, their conversations are either completely routine and surface level, or seething with resentment, at least on her end. Tatsu, her husband, doesn’t seem as if he even cares enough to be upset at this state of their stale marriage, which only leads to more resentment for Mizuki. She knows she should be satisfied. She has a beautiful home and family that most people dream of, and her husband, while distant, is a good man. But when she meets someone who makes her feel truly seen, who is the kind of person who actually sits and contemplates the answers to questions before just spouting off, as if he really cares and truly wants to know her and her to know him, she is conflicted. How long can she pretend that this will never go further than friendship, and that she isn't playing a very dangerous game spending time with him. And what will this mean for her marriage. Will the fault lines finally crack enough to bring everything crashing down?

This is a beautiful character study and one that isn’t afraid to present a flawed person making some bad, but very realistic decisions. It isn’t black and white, the husband isn’t some terrible monster to make adultery more palatable, and I really appreciated that. This is just a story, about people who feel real, with motivations that feel genuine. There really is no “plot”, rather this is just a glimpse into a short period of time where a woman contemplates her life, her marriage, and her role as a mother. I don’t think this is going to be for everyone, particularly not those who need something to *happen* in a story, nor for those who will feel frustrated at first-world problems and an upper middle class housewife’s ennui. For me though, this rang so very true and so many of Mizuki’s thoughts and regrets really resonated with me. And her biting wit had me smiling to myself as I read. This may be the most highlighted book currently on my kindle; there were so many gems.

Mizuki has a side gig where she teaches Japanese, both the language and the culture, to expats. This whole book felt a bit like I was being given an insider’s glimpse into a culture so foreign to my own via her story, and Itami does a wonderful job blending these types of details into her story in an accessible and seamless way for Western readers. There were also some laugh out loud moments including a brash American’s faux pas at a dinner party while the guests try not to make their horror apparent. I’d be very curious to hear how those living in Japan and specifically Tokyo feel about these portions of the book.

This is a wonderful debut, and the blurb gets it perfectly right here. If you’ve ever wondered how exactly you ended up where you did in life, or realized your teenage self would never have imagined this for you, I think this book will really hit home.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for an advanced copy of this title for review. It was my pleasure.

I heard lots and lots of praise for this title before picking it up, so perhaps my expectations were inflated. I felt this was great as a debut, but left a lot to be desired.

I really enjoyed this one. I loved the author's writing style. I felt as if the narrator and I were having a conversation or therapy session. I also loved reading about a place I know nothing about but would like to visit someday - Tokyo. The storyline rang very true for me as I related to the constantly questioning and doubting stay at home mom. Interesting and fun, but also poignant. Thank you Netgalley and Book Club Girls for this ARC.

I loved this book! It was relatable in so many ways. This is about Mizuki and her day to day life as a wife and mother of two. It is beautifully written and unputdownable

She was a very different type of Japanese woman she came from a lower class background but her parents meant helter and she went to America she saw how the other half lived and she wanted to be a singer and she came back and she tried that in Japan but she ended up having a very traditional Japanese man so she caught a r on the house that way but she wasn't very happy so she would go out and shop and she started to have an affair with this man to see If this was gonna make her happy and I'm in the titles interesting the fault linesClosest has meaning at the end of the bookAlso she had 2 children who were totally opposite of each otherAnd how her husband was a typical Japanese man going on all the time and he expected to keep the houseThis is why she ended up the way she was









kids

I was very impressed with this debut novel. It is a first-person narrative by Mizuki, who admits to having beautiful children, a beautiful husband, and a beautiful apartment in a Tokyo high-rise. Her husband, Tatsuya, works the usual insane hours and is rewarded with promotions and a comfortable lifestyle for his family, but Mizuki faults him for taking her for granted and wishes he would "phrase things more pleasantly."

After spending a year as a foreign exchange student in the US as a 16-year-old, Mizuki couldn't wait to go back to New York and pursue a career as a singer. She ended up playing some gigs in both countries but gave it up after marrying Tatsuya and having their son and daughter, now aged 4 and 10. She spends some of her time as a consultant teaching American and English businessmen how to navigate Japan's unexpected cultural idiosyncrasies so they can avoid offending the locals. But it's not enough. She wonders: "Is it normal to fluctuate so quickly between feeling tender toward your husband and fervently wishing him a violent death?" Mizuki can't help striking up a friendship with Kiyoshi, an attractive restaurant entrepreneur, and realizes she has to decide what she wants her life to be.

Itami's writing is at its best when she is ruminating about the highs and lows of motherhood, the traps foreigners can unknowingly fall into when they are not familiar with Japanese customs, the conflicting desires of a privileged but unfulfilled woman, and the potential dangers of Tokyo's subway system. She has a way with prose--I found it to be clever, luminous, and accessible. It's a comparatively short book (220 pages) but is absolutely worth your time.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE this book. It was a total surprise to me, I hadn't heard a thing about it and was unfamiliar with the author. Emily Itami's writing is as beautiful as Murakami, in fact I originally made the incorrect assumption that this was a translation from Japanese! The character of Mizuki is one of the best defined I can remember reading, which is a great feat since she is of a culture and in a country I have no first hand knowledge of. Fault Lines put me there, made me feel the beauty, vibrancy, pressures, frustration, boredom, honor, of being a Tokyo wife and mother. This book was fantastic.

I can’t believe this is a debut novel. Well done, Emily Itami! There are authors whose vivid prose paints the setting and characters so beautifully that you’re immediately immersed in the story, taken away to another place, and this was one of those books for me. I have to confess though - it was actually the cover that first got me. How gorgeous is that? Luckily the inside was just as wonderful.

Told from her POV, Mizuki has been married to salaryman, Tatsuya, for sixteen years and they and their two children, 10-year-old daughter Eri, and 4-year-old son Aki live in a very nice Tokyo apartment. As happens in marriage sometimes, and exacerbated by Tatsuya’s high stress, time intensive position and her frustrations as a wife and mother, they’ve grown more and more distant. When she encounters handsome stranger Kiyoshi one day … life gets a little more complicated.

At its core, this is a story of a woman struggling as a wife and mother and trying to find comfort and emotional connection, or even just remember who she was in her pre-marriage life. For some it may seem that Mizuki’s behavior is somehow being justified or romanticized, but I really appreciated that her portrayal and that of her marriage, felt honest. She wasn’t always written in the most flattering light, but I always felt like she was “real”. You could understand her motivations whether you agreed with how she pursued them or not.

Borrowing the title’s imagery - the story beautifully illustrates the fault lines that are hidden under the surface of any relationship - the things that can shake us and break us if we’re not prepared. While that may sound like a depressing premise, I assure you that this is not some emotionally overwrought melodrama - far from it. Mizuki is sarcastic and blunt. There’s so much humor and warmth in this story, and I appreciated that the slow-build relationship between her and Kiyoshi focused far more on their friendship than the expected stuff.

It’s a wonderful story - start to finish. This will be in my 2021 favorites, and I’ll definitely be watching for anything Itami writes in the future. I can find no fault here!

★★★★★ ❤️

It was great to read a book about Japan, Japanese culture, and motherhood and marriage in that culture. Mizuki is a Japanese housewife who is in an unsatisying marriage where her husband ignores her and pays more attention to her phone and work,

Mizuki is a very likeable character. I could relate to the pressures she felt as a wife and mother, even in a culture so different. Despite her flaws, I was rooting for her to find happiness in her life. Either in her marriage our outside of it.

An easy writing style and relatable plot made this a fast and enjoyable read.

though this book was only 224 pages, it was still too long. It was very wordy with whole chapters where nothing happens. One chapter literally just talks about the love you have for children after having them. I don't care.
I also disliked the main character. She was catty towards her husband and treated him him badly just because she was bored.
The only redeeming quality about this book was that I enjoyed learning about the culture.
Thank you to netgalley for letting me read an advanced copy of this book for my honest opinion.

5 Stars!!
Mizuki, a wife and mother of 3, is struggling with feeling happy with her current life, reminiscing about her past life and fantasizing what her could be life of different choices were made. Enter an interesting restauranter, and Mizuki gets to feel seen again, but at what cost to her family? I enjoyed being inside Mizuki's head while we took the journey with her. Candid and witty, at times I laughed and other times felt wrapped up in the story like being in a warm blanket. The added touch of descriptive Tokyo made me feel like I was actually there as a tourist.
What a brilliant debut. Loved the styling. Fault Lines is beautifully written. I'll be looking for Itami's next novel.

Thank you to netgalley and custom house for an advanced readers copy.

I didn’t like this book at all. It was difficult to read because the sentences were too long, the cultural names and references unknown and the story uninteresting.

This book is about a woman who seems to have a perfect life...husband, children, etc. But, like many, Mizuki is bored with what she has and looks for freedom in other places. Her inner thoughts and opinions were real, sad (and sometimes funny) but I wasn't fond of the storyine concerning Kiyoshi. I kept wondering long she could have this other life without her husband noticing the amount of time she was away.
I did enjoy what I learned about the Japanese culture. My rating would be a 3.5.

Thank you Book Club Girl Early Read, NetGalley, and Harper Collins, for the arc of this book! I loved the reading about Japan - it brought back great memories of the vacation I took there. The characters were realistic, and they weren't always likeable. I thought the kids were written well. I think women with kids would really like this book. As a single woman, the story didn't really connect for me. However I really enjoyed reading this book and look forward to more books by this author!

This book was... ok. I enjoyed the writing style- descriptive and lyrical without being verbose or unwieldy. I liked the musings on marriage, family, not being who/what you thought you'd be, and the dissatisfaction that comes with a comfortable, staid, unremarkable life. That part all felt very true to me. But the book was a bit disjointed at times. There was jumping around in time that made no sense. There was A LOT of attention paid to the past without really needing to. There were cliff-hanger-type comments at the ends of chapters that never really materialized later. And then everything "happens" in the last 10% of the book. Crisis, resolution, ending. Boom. This might have been better with some heavy editing, maybe as a novella or short story. Don't misunderstand, I DID LIKE the story and the writing. I just felt it was too long in the beginning, and too short at the end.

I fell in love with this book from the very first page. I first gave it the eye, like a potential suitor, when I noticed its gorgeous cover, but what’s inside is even better than the cover promises. It’s stunning to me that a writer as bold and beautiful as Emily Itami is, here with Fault Lines, only on her very first novel. The potential!

This is the best book I’ve read in many months, the kind you really want to savor, because the narrator’s voice is such beauty and perfection. And by perfection here I mean imperfection. Mizuki, our protagonist, is a former singer stuck in a boring marriage to a Japanese salaryman, with the daily job of raising her children (or, as she puts it hilariously, “being in a state of indentured servitude to two small psychopaths.”) She looks out the window at the high rises around her, yearning for more. One day she finds it in a man who is not her husband.

I absolutely loved being inside Mizuki’s head and following her through her daily life in Tokyo. Her biting wit, boldness, and sense of humor immediately smash any stereotypes the reader might have about a Japanese housewife. I adored following Mizuki as she searched for something outside her boring day job as a wife and mom, spent with (to paraphrase), her husband — aka her one and only co-worker she must work for and with for life. Did she choose well? What might handsome stranger Kiyoshi have to offer her outside this world? She loves the way he was “the first person in years who thought about the answers to the questions I asked him and looked right at me when he replied.” Because in her marriage, she already has a protagonist in her life…and it’s not her, but her husband. (So many little sparkling gems of quotes scattered throughout this book!)

If you haven’t guessed, this book is quirky and irreverent with what might at first seem to be somewhat of a dim view of commitment, but it’s really much more layered and interesting than that. To me, this is the best kind of book that takes you to a world totally different from your own and provides a totally immersive experience. I saw another review or two that said they found the character unlikeable. Me? I loved her, her sense of humor, and her keen observations from the start.

In conclusion, READ!! this book. It’s so lovely, biting, quirky, and deep. I hope Emily Itami has more for me so devour soon. She’s a wonderful and exciting new talent.

So many thanks to William Morris and Custom House, NetGalley, and the author for this treat of an ARC. It has been awhile since I’ve been this excited about a book, and I think it will be one I reread with some frequency.