If You Follow Me

A girl's father commits suicide. She then falls in love with another girl and moves off to teach English in Japan. There, she has all sorts of problems with garbage sorting falls in an akward professional/romantic relationship with her male supervisor. She has a falling out with her girlfriend, but really comes to like the Japanese people, and decides to stay there longer (outlasting her former girlfriend.)

The novel is well-written and properly paced. It provides a nice balance between introspection (primarily regarding her past relationships with her father) and current experiences with the Japanese. The main complaint I had is the number of Japanese characters initially introduced. It becomes difficult to distinguish between the many characters - especially when they are referred to by different names or titles. Overall, it provides interesting observations in to the lives of small-town Japanese while at the same time providing a "memoir" of the struggle with death.