I remember those moments when something such as, say, when I discovered that a band I enjoyed listening to with my Dad was considered very uncool by older classmates I wanted to impress and the discomfort of trying to process contradictory feelings.

Something that really struck me about Ms Ice Sandwich was the way it thrust me back into the painfully awkward moments of self-revelation about existing in a larger society. This very quirky and endearing novella follows him trying to negotiate his life around these women and the changes of relationship with them that are inevitably taking place. Her eyes are enormous, he says and compares them to illustrations of big-eyed dogs in a faintly remembered adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Tinderbox, and she wears blue eye makeup that reminds him of the ice cream sandwiches sold there. Ms Ice Sandwich (presumably early 20s) works the sandwich counter at the local convenience store and the narrator has such a fixation with her and her eyes that he stops there every day to buy an egg sandwich just to watch how deftly she places it in a sandwich bag. At the heart of the story are the women in his life: his mother, with whom he is ‘ getting used to not paying attention’, his dying grandmother, his hot and cold friendship with a girl named Tutti (accidentally nicknamed this amongst their peers when he called her out once for farting in class), and, of course, his fascination with Ms Ice Sandwich. Like life, it is a cacaphony of events that the narrator is just trying to get through, often unsure what is expected of him. This little gem of a novella covers a lot of emotional territory and does all of it to near perfection. Ms Ice Sandwich is blissfully succinct while managing to be a highly nuanced and textured adolescent narrative that perfectly captures the chaos of growing up and entering a new awareness to the complexity of being human. This is such a well crafted novella that navigates an emotional awakening in a boy dealing with change, processing information that contrasts with his own feelings as well as a charming accounting of his childhood fascination with a woman who works at the local convenience store. Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami (beautifully translated by Louise Heal Kawai) has a remarkable grasp on these volatile moments that is prodigously told through the perspective of a young boy grappling with these changes. There is a paradigm shift in all your relationships and you clamour to hold on and ride the changes into what you hope is a more mature You. The cusp of adolescence is a tumultuous time when everything you thought you understood about life, yourself and others is suddenly rent asunder.

Ms ice sandwich