Book Review: ‘Sisters in Yellow’ by Mieko Kawakami
Set between the early days of the pandemic and the late 1990s in Tokyo, Mieko Kawakami’s Sisters in Yellow follows Hana as she looks back on her teenage years and the intense bond she once shared with Kimiko. What begins as a story about friendship and found family gradually reveals itself as something more complicated, shaped by loneliness, survival, and the fragile narratives we create to make sense of our past.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by Knopf for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of Sisters in Yellow contains some spoilers!]
The bonds that lie in Mieko Kawakami’s novel
Sisters in Yellow moves between two timelines. In the present, Hana is living through the quiet isolation of the pandemic. That pause in the outside world seems to open a door to her memories, drawing her back to the years when she first met Kimiko. Those memories unfold slowly and sometimes uneasily, as if Hana herself is unsure how much of what she remembers is truth and how much is the story she told herself to survive that time.
Reading this book took me straight back to being seventeen, when every emotion felt amplified. Nights with friends seemed endless, like they contained the entire world. You could spend hours wandering through streets or sitting somewhere small and warm, laughing and talking as if nothing outside that moment existed. At that age, everything feels absolute. Friendship feels permanent. Betrayal feels catastrophic. The novel captures that emotional intensity well. One moment, Hana feels completely understood by Kimiko, and the next, she is overwhelmed by the fear that she might lose the only person who seems to see her.
Hana is easy to sympathize with. Growing up with a single mother who cannot always provide stability leaves her emotionally untethered. There is very little structure or protection in her home life, and that absence shapes how she moves through the world. When she meets Kimiko, the connection feels immediate and almost fated.
Kimiko is older than Hana and carries herself with a kind of quiet authority. In Hana’s telling, she initially appears almost mythic. She feels confident, mysterious, and self-possessed in a way that is incredibly magnetic to a lonely teenager searching for belonging. Hana interprets Kimiko as someone strong enough to lead them both into a better life.
But as the story unfolds, small details begin to complicate that image. Kimiko’s behavior has a repetitive quality that becomes increasingly noticeable. She cleans obsessively, returning to the same tasks again and again as if the routine itself offers comfort. She expresses care through practical gestures, especially by preparing and providing food. Feeding people becomes her primary language of affection. These habits hint that Kimiko may be navigating the world with her own vulnerabilities and limitations.
Not all is what it seems in Sisters in Yellow
Those subtle cracks make the dynamic between the two women more layered than it first appears. Hana sees Kimiko as powerful and capable, but the reader begins to sense that Kimiko may not fully embody the role Hana assigns to her. In many ways, the version of Kimiko that exists in the story reflects the narrative Hana built around her rather than the complete reality of who Kimiko is.
That realization becomes one of the most interesting parts of Sisters in Yellow. For a teenager growing up without stability, it makes sense that Hana would transform Kimiko into someone larger-than-life. Seeing her as strong and fearless helps Hana believe she has found someone who can anchor her. That belief allows Hana to ignore doubts and inconsistencies that might otherwise challenge the relationship.
Together, they open a small bar that becomes the center of their shared world. The bar feels like a refuge at first. It is a place where outsiders gather, where Hana briefly experiences the sense of belonging she has been searching for. For a while, it feels like the two of them have built something stable out of nothing.
When the bar burns down, that fragile world collapses. The loss leaves Hana scrambling for survival, and the choices she makes afterward become increasingly desperate. She turns to illegal work, including debit card fraud, slipping into a criminal economy that feels both dangerous and strangely inevitable, given how precarious her life has always been.
Those choices add another layer to the story’s exploration of memory and responsibility. As Hana looks back on those years, she begins to recognize how the story she constructed about Kimiko also allowed her to avoid confronting her own decisions. Casting Kimiko as the powerful figure in their relationship gave Hana a way to frame herself as someone simply following along. But the older version of Hana seems increasingly aware that the truth is more complicated than that.
Final thoughts on this Knopf publication
The middle section dragged a bit for me. The pacing slows, and I occasionally feel lost in Hana’s emotional spiral. Some scenes linger on similar thoughts and memories, which made the story feel slightly stalled at times. Even so, the emotional depth kept me invested. Watching Hana revisit these moments reflects the way memory actually works. People circle back to the same events repeatedly, trying to understand what they missed the first time.
By the end, the novel leaves you thinking about how easily young people can mistake intensity for loyalty or love. When you are lonely, the person who pulls you into their orbit can feel like salvation. Looking back years later, those memories often shift as we recognize how much of the story we created ourselves.
Readers who enjoy character-driven literary fiction will likely connect with this book. It will especially resonate with anyone interested in complex female friendships and stories that explore loneliness, belonging, and the difficult process of confronting our past choices. The novel lingers because it quietly asks how much of our memories is truth and how much is the stories we needed to survive them.
Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami is available now! Have you had a chance to read this novel yet? Is this on your TBR? Share your thoughts on social media and tag @bsb.insider to carry on the conversation!
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