川上未映子

Naoko jednostavna priča o prijateljstvu dvoje zlostavljanih trinaestogodišnjaka-neimenovanog protagoniste i njegove razredne kolegice. Razmatraju se filozofska pitanja odnosa dobra i zla te patnje kao spasenja.

Tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old unmarried narrator, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. Unable to come to terms with her changed body after giving birth, Makiko becomes obsessed with the prospect of getting breast enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, her twelve-year-old daughter Midoriko is paralyzed by the fear of her oncoming puberty and finds herself unable to voice the vague, yet overwhelming anxieties associated with growing up. The narrator, who remains unnamed for most of the story, struggles with her own indeterminable identity of being neither a "daughter" nor a "mother." Set over three stiflingly hot days in Tokyo, the book tells of a reunion of sorts between two sisters, and the passage into womanhood of young Midoriko.

A boy goes to the supermarket almost every day, just so he can look at the face of the woman who sells sandwiches. She is beautiful to him, and he calls her "Ms Ice Sandwich", and endlessly draws her portrait. When the boy's friend hears about this hesitant adoration, suddenly everything changes. His visits to Ms Ice Sandwich stop, and with them the last hopes of his childhood.