Finished chapter (?) 1, about 20% in. I was hoping for a “old woman living her best life” story… this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be one… 
I did not expect the MC to have some sort of dementia.
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Now I am pretty much exactly at 50% and it gets easier to read as you go along! The story becomes less confusing and there is less Tohoku dialect. So far the overall mood is a little sad and lonely, but the author has a great way of simply describing complicated emotions and relationships.
Chapter 2 Spoilers
I found the exchange she had with her daughter sad, but I guess that type of thing can happen. 
Family relationships can be complex. I also found the observation about her grand-daughter’s skirt and memories of making her own daughter wear clothes she didn’t like interesting. Specifically, how parents repeat the same things over and over throughout generations. I also liked the short section about her guilt towards her son and how he turned out - all of the descriptions of those things were short, but captured the complicated feelings family members can have in my opinion!
Chapter 3 up until 50% / page 86 spoilers
I enjoyed the past flashbacks of her meeting her husband and found the story of the first time they talked to eachother really sweet. However, that relationship seems like it quickly got a little complicated too! 
I see also there is an exploration of how the place you grow up and how you speak shapes you. No matter how far away you go, your childhood memories and dialect can shape you for sure. I am not as old as the narrator but maybe one day I will end up speaking the dialect I remember from my family members speaking during my childhood too!
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Good to know 
just finished chapter 2 here and it was indeed way easier than chapter 1.
Chapter 2:
I read it more as she remembered what she didn’t like her mother to do to her, she tried to correct it but ended up doing the same thing to her daughter. I wonder if that’s what she wanted to talk about, that she had realized that she can’t break the circle, when she said to her daughter 「直美、あの……伝染るんだよ」. Then (if I understood correctly), the daughter didn’t ask about that, as she went on to ask for money for tutoring for her son.
I found 桃子さん’s reflections on motherhood (parenthood?) interesting, especially the part where she says “nowadays we don’t even die young anymore before our children become adults, so we are still around for many years and even watch them become old”.
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Chapter 2:
That also struck a chord with me, also her observation that back in the day parents would die around the time their youngest grew up - feels a bit scary, really 
Generally I felt quite lost in the seemingly directionless ramblings of the first chapter, but in the second chapter I found a lot more that I could relate to, especially the whole family drama/sadness/estrangement.
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Chapter 2 was pretty sad, but very much a reality for many people.
This book is kinda depressing, ngl. The cover looks deceptively cheerful, though…
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Chapter 3
Haha the Tohoku-ben furigana on 覚えている when she meets her husband was funny.
まさか、でも虔十だ。あの宝石のような物語の主人公が目の前にいる。
This is the reference to this story, the next paragraph of the book is the second sentence of the story in this version:
宮沢賢治 虔十公園林
(it doesn’t seem very long, maybe I should try and read it)
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I ended up pushing through and finishing it today. I am looking forward to reading everyone’s thoughts… I am bad at putting my own into words, but if I had gone into this with a different expectation/better idea of the content, I’d probably enjoyed it more. 
but at least the dialect was much less of a problem as we all feared. 
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Oh yes! This was kind of what I meant but you explained it better - I did see it that way too. 
I ended up powering through and reading to the end, so here are some random thoughts:
This book had so much going on! It bounced back and forth between the past, present, reality and fantasy. That aspect of it made it a little hard to read and follow at times, but it felt like a deliberate choice to show Momoko’s “inner life”. She would jump around between talking to herself, feeling really lonely and desperate, seeing the beauty in life and feeling really motivated to live, connecting with her past self and eventually granddaughter - I think this was kind of a realistic take on what it could be like to be in her position. I’m not Momoko’s age yet, but my state of mind and mood can change within the same week or day too, so I could imagine having some of the same fears and anxieties as her. From that pov, I think the book was a “success” since I think the author was trying to depict this kind of raw mental state of an older character?? However, I would say it didn’t fully click with me, so I gave it 3 stars. Maybe I can reread it in the future and enjoy it more.
A few things from the book that stuck out to me that I really appreciated:
I enjoyed the story of her meeting her husband and her recollections on their relationship, her remembering the mountain near her childhood home that remains unchanged when everything else is different, and the connection she had with her granddaughter in the end bringing things full circle with the connection she had with her own grandmother.
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Cool that you’ve both already finished! One chapter a week seems to have been a good guestimate for myself. So probably I will finish chapter 4 this week and chapter 5 next week, let’s see 
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Go go! 
1 chapter per week seems like a good pace for this book since it is has so much going on
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Finished the book finished chapter 4 earlier today and indeed it was just a little push more to finish the book.
Song from chapter 5:
Something with throwing beans to make the demons go away, I think I’ve heard of it before but can’t remember where.
I really like your review! That’s how I feel about the book too. I don’t think my Japanese was good enough to fully appreciate it but seems like it had a lot of interesting insights. Only a 3/5 for me though, I’m very glad to be done 
Didn’t even think about that, good point!
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