Love at Least by Yukiko Motoya, Kamil Spychalski

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for twenty-first-century Japan, a young woman suffering from depression embarks on a series of darkly comic domestic disasters that lead her to question whether she is worthy of love

Twenty-five-year-old Yasuko has been living with her kind but apathetic boyfriend Tsunaki for three years. During this time, she has battled waves of depression and hypersomnia, staying in bed for days on end, mired in ennui.

When Tsunaki begins working longer hours, Yasuko tries to take over some of the house chores in the hope of breaking out of her rut, but cannot even manage to cook dinner without ending up sobbing in a pitch-black hallway. Any attempt to get her life together seems only to highlight Yasuko’s brokenness. As everything threatens to fall apart, she makes a spectacular last-ditch effort to wrench Tsunaki out of his indifference and find something to ground her in the world.

Radical, comical, and energetic, Love at Least is a sincere and compelling story of a young woman searching for connection.