(.) Motoya’s talent for voice informs her first-person narrators, both female and male, who have a genuine vulnerability and convincing matter-of-factness as they veer into the fantastic.' - Nicolas Gattig, The Japan Times

'Like a bouquet of exotic flowers, her stories are varied and full of surprise, starting out with mundane situations and then turning strange in a way that feels uniquely Japanese.

It’s when Motoya is on the rocky terrain of collapsing relationships that her strangeness finds the friction it needs to stick.' - Chris Power, The Guardian

'Like soap bubbles, several of these stories catch your eye, but the instant they are gone you forget about them.

(.) By the first few sentences of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, you know you’re hearing the voice of a remarkable writer by the end of 'An Exotic Marriage', you’re certain that Yukiko Motoya’s shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you. While not explicitly feminist, her female protagonists share a capacity for small rebellions, sudden twitches against life-long habits of conformity.

'Her characters seem to be searching for the strangest, and most estranged, parts of themselves.

Twelve stories from collections originally published in Japanese in 20ī : some creative flair and decent narration but not much else to them.

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The Lonesome Bodybuilder (Picnic in the Storm) - Motoya Yukiko

The lonesome bodybuilder