Hardboiled & Hardluck

Hardboiled and Hardluck is a collection of 2 short stories, both themed around loss, grieving and acceptance of death.

In the first one, the unnamed protagonist is met with multiple paranormal occurrences in the small inn she's staying at. Throughout these paranormal experiences she comes to terms with the loss of her ex girlfriend who died some time after they broke up. This story was my favourite of the two, because I really liked the general tone and setting. The old lady that maintains the inn was such a fun character. I like that while the story kind of follows your generic ghost story patterns it's incredibly chill and grounded, with all of the characters being very nonchalant lmao.

The second story was hard to get through, not because it was bad, but because the subject matter was extremely upsetting to me... It's about a woman whose sister suffered a stroke right before getting married and now she has to deal with the fact that her sister is slowly going braindead and her life support will have to be shut down. I could barely read some of the paragraphs without bawling my eyes out, especially because both of the characters are around me and my sister's ages. Everything about this story was extremely sad and it detailed a very real process of losing someone and dealing with all of the stuff that comes afterwards - all the while falling in love with a person you've barely just met and knowing the timing isn't right. The love story part is handled pretty well in my opinion (despite the age gap.. le sigh...), there's no grand fanfare and it's not like it takes away from anything. The storytelling is very matter of fact and you just have a feeling like you're getting a glimpse into someone's life during a time of turmoil.

I always enjoy how pragmatic Yoshimoto's characters sound and act. The way both of these characters process through their emotions was calming to read through. Both stories use the same type of narration, first person with a particularly high amount of flashbacks, which specifically in the first story blurs the line between reality and dreams at some points.

These weren't my favourite short stories I've read by her, but they were certainly worth a read!