Kakigori summer

When rising J-pop idol Ai gets caught with a married music executive, the resulting tabloid scandals shatters her image, and she becomes a national disgrace. The fallout draws in her two older sisters. Rei, a tightly controlled corporate professional living in London, debates whether to return to Tokyo to help, while Kiki tries to hold the family together with humor and resilience despite juggling her job, motherhood, and her own emotional load. Meanwhile, Ai retreats into herself, overwhelmed by the collapse of her carefully curated idol image and her own sense of self-worth. Told from alternating perspectives, the story unpacks each sister's private struggles as they reunite at their childhood home for the summer. Itami's (Fault Lines, 2021) voice is sharp, funny, and deeply empathetic, weaving together wit and poignancy in a character-driven narrative that feels fresh, heartfelt, and painfully real. She deftly explores celebrity culture in Japan, the emotional toll of perfectionism, and the jagged, enduring bond between sisters who couldn't be more different but are bound by shared loss and love.

Itami (Fault Lines) serves up an inviting and wistful tale of three sisters who reunite during a crisis. Ai Takanawa, a 20-something Japanese pop star and the youngest of the sisters, winds up in a scandal when she's photographed being kissed by the married president of her record label. Her oldest sister, Rei, an investment banker in London, has just engaged in her own bit of reckless behavior, hooking up with her ex-boyfriend Sath at a wedding. She flies to Tokyo to meet middle sister Kiki, a single mother and health-care worker, and the pair hatch a plan to rescue Ai from the spotlight. They spirit her against her will to their secluded hometown of Ikimura, where they settle back into their childhood home with their ornery great-grandmother. While Ikimura provides the sisters with a haven from the paparazzi, the village also triggers troubling remembrances of their mother, who drowned herself when they were young. As they spend the summer eating matcha-flavored kakigori shaved ice and visiting the beach they played on as children, they attempt to find a way forward through their difficult adulthoods. Itami strikes just the right chord, showing how the sisters indulge their nostalgia for happier times even as they attempt to reckon with their painful memories. Readers are in for a treat. (June)