Izumi needs to get a job. Haruka needs to stop talking about how she once had cancer. Kato needs to get through a shift at the convenience store without being harassed.

Mito needs to break up with her boyfriend - or marry him. Sumie just needs somewhere to live. In this classic Japanese bestseller, published in English twenty-five years after it took Japan by storm, the lives of five ordinary women are depicted with irresistible humour and searing emotional insight.