Kakigori Summer
On sale
10th June 2025
Price: £20
Sisters Rei, Kiki and Ai have always had to look out for one another, but life has taken them on very different paths.
Eldest daughter Rei is spiky and sensible, consumed by her London finance job. Big-hearted Kiki is a single mother, working in a Tokyo retirement home. The free-spirited youngest, Ai, is a Japanese pop idol who has found fame and fortune – until a scandal spins her life into chaos . . .
Together, the three sisters retreat to the remote seaside town where they grew up. But returning home means facing the long shadow of their mother’s death, and the lives they’ve built without each other.
Transporting, funny and moving, Kakigori Summer is an uplifting exploration of love, loss, and finding your way home.
Eldest daughter Rei is spiky and sensible, consumed by her London finance job. Big-hearted Kiki is a single mother, working in a Tokyo retirement home. The free-spirited youngest, Ai, is a Japanese pop idol who has found fame and fortune – until a scandal spins her life into chaos . . .
Together, the three sisters retreat to the remote seaside town where they grew up. But returning home means facing the long shadow of their mother’s death, and the lives they’ve built without each other.
Transporting, funny and moving, Kakigori Summer is an uplifting exploration of love, loss, and finding your way home.
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Reviews
Itami's voice is sharp, funny, and deeply empathetic, weaving together wit and poignancy in a character-driven narrative that feels fresh, heartfelt, and painfully real
Kakigori Summer is a tale of sisterhood as delicious and finely textured as the shaved-ice dessert its protagonists relish in . . . Bittersweet, nostalgic, and easy to envision . . . The coastal setting is itself a character in this book, and perhaps one of the book's biggest selling points - Itami makes the landscape feel as real as the bond between the sisters. A lovely, tender-hearted tale
Funny, gentle and warm, though Itami's sentences are never fluffy. And it contains one of the best descriptions of overthinking I've ever read
A bittersweet and wry family drama for fans of Sally Rooney
I adore Emily Itami's writing . . . Kakigori Summer is a novel about belonging, both within a family and the wider world, and I loved retreating into its cocoon of sibling humour as the sisters briefly stepped back to discover their place in it. Cosy, dreamy, although you're never too far from a line that's sharply astute
A sensory journey through a summer on the Japanese coast and into the very corners of the hearts of sisters Rei, Kiki and Ai. It's wonderful
This is a wonderful story about sisters rebonding and rethinking what they believed about their mother. It's a beautiful insight into Japanese culture
This novel had me hooked from the first chapter. Three sisters, Japan, the complexities of family bonds, love and loss. I got totally immersed in their lives. It's funny and insightful and poignant and uplifting . . . And a rare accolade - the most excellent and satisfying ending!
Beautifully crafted . . . This is your hot tip: take it and get comfortable on your hols
I loved Kakigori Summer . . . The sisters felt completely real, my sympathies finely balanced between all three of them and their different internal struggles were beautifully and poignantly evoked . . . I loved the well-crafted prose, the distinctive, slightly acerbic turns of phrase . . . joyful and uplifting too: the romantic and hopeful ending felt just right
An inviting and wistful tale of three sisters who reunite during a crisis . . . Itami strikes just the right chord, showing how the sisters indulge their nostalgia for happier times even as they attempt to reckon with their painful memories. Readers are in for a treat
Deliciously acerbic and very funny. This is the most perfect book to see you through your own summer and I couldn't have loved it more
Emily Itami's Kakigori Summer balances the light and the dark in a way I love. There is a real psychological insight into the way the three sisters all have such different reactions to their mother's death . . . the nostalgia of the setting is done so well. I was on the beach with those sisters, experiencing the moments of joy when they start to heal from the emotional damage of the past
As refreshing as the iced dessert it's named after, Kakigori Summer follows three sisters - Rei, Kiki and Ai - who couldn't be more different. When J-pop star Ai is papped kissing an older married man - the head of her record label - the three sisters retreat to the remote seaside town where they grew up. Ahead of them is a summer of sunshine, beaches and people who know and love them. But returning home also means facing the impact of their mother's death fifteen years ago. An atmospheric and deeply moving story about sisterhood, memory and how loss shapes us