Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Rating: 
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I bought this book on a whim while I was in Oxford in Blackwell’s because it looked good. See, when I was barely in my twenties, translated fiction was ridiculously cheap because it wasn’t selling, and so I bought it and read it and loved a good book, but then it exploded and I was slightly put off by the price. So this was a call from my mind to remember my roots and my love for it.
Now, this specific review will be a bit more personal than you would normally get, because I read Diary of a Void in the early weeks of pregnancy, before I knew I was pregnant and the story hit me in a specific way at the time. Then I found out I was pregnant, and had a miscarriage and now that I am sitting down to write a review I can’t help but be hit by it in a completely different way (and it doesn’t detract from it, but rather, it makes ever so more interesting).
The premise for Diary of a Void is a slight pun at a guide book through pregnancy in Japan (there is a fancy explanation in the book about this), and it follows Miss Shibata as she suddenly has enough and says she’s pregnant. And she decides to continue the ruse with the help of reading about pregnancy, and some different ideas, but then how far is too far into having a make believe pregnancy?
Culturally, I can see this working in Japan, but not so much here in the UK or other western countries, so it is important to come to this story considering the setting, since it is important. And heck, the book is a quick read as we go through the different stages and the updates of how baby should be impacting our protagonist and what is recommended she do.
As she tells us the story, we start seeing when it becomes too real and she is deep in the lie, and it just gets interesting to see how she navigates each stage of the pregnancy and how to let work know updates and keep faking it. One of my favourite parts was the changes she decides to make due to the “pregnancy” and what is recommended, and how that makes her health and life better. This is still my favourite part after my own experience and the fact that I took habits from what I was doing for the pregnancy that was lost, and still do them. The routine, and the changes are still good. It is interesting what we can do and change for another life, even if in the case of Miss Shibata is purely for a void.
It was a good choice to get back into translated fiction and it is a weirdly interesting book, pregnant or not, to read, with some interesting reflections on how we react to pregnancy in us and in others and how society works around it.
