Mina’s Matchbox is about, and often reads like it has been written for, children. Set in 1970s Japan, the novel is sweet and uncomplicated. Twelve-year-old Tomoko moves in with her uncle while her mother trains as a seamstress. She is enthralled by her cousin Mina, a girl who poses ‘difficult to answer’ questions and is so asthmatic that she has to ride to school on her pet hippopotamus. Together, they obsess over the Japanese beach volleyball team, watch a comet fall and develop crushes on the librarian and the postman. 

The novel is narrated by an adult Tomoko. Her year with Mina supposedly forms ‘the very foundation’ of her memory, but little happens. On the surface, the girls’ relationship will feel familiar to readers of Elena Ferrante’s quartet and Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose. Tomoko is well aware that Mina is smarter, richer and more beautiful than her. She repeats Mina’s literary opinions to impress the librarian but knows she is ‘no more than the messenger’ and not the ‘real beauty’. Unlike in Ferrante’s quartet, though, this relationship does not take on a compelling life of its own. There’s no burning envy, no self-development.

Yoko Ogawa leaves plenty of questions half answered. Why is Mina so ill and might her life be in danger? Why is Mina’s uncle, a charismatic businessman, never there? Mina collects matchboxes, ominous toys for children, but they never produce the kind of spark you might expect. The novel is