This book is an interesting kind of mix between literary fiction and magical realism. The protagonist is an unreliable narrator as she admits throughout the book to telling lies, but whether she is lying to her coworkers, herself, the reader, or all the above -- you're not sure.

For the first two thirds of the book it seems clear she is lying about being pregnant. But as the book goes on she does get pregnancy symptoms, starts seeing a doctor, feels her baby kick etc. But after the baby is "born" she goes back to saying there is no baby and that she is lying to her coworkers again. So what is true? Was she pregnant or not? I'm not sure. I think there is a surreal feeling to the book and that you're not really supposed to know. She compares herself to mother Mary and immaculate conception a few times. Also at the end she is in pain a lot and wakes up bleeding so it's also possible she was pregnant but lost the baby. I think it is also possible she was SA'd and that ended in her getting pregnant and then lying to herself. Because there is mentions of some SA in her past. I'm really not sure.

Whether the protagonist is really pregnant or not I guess that doesn't matter as much because what the book is really about is how women are treated in Japan at work Vs when they're pregnant. It does have some interesting social commentary but I wish it went deeper into it. 

I've read three Japanese books this year and I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing or due to the translation or if its just the books I've been reading, but the characters seem quite passive to me and we don't get to see the full interior of their personalities. I think that's a shame as it makes it a bit harder to really empathise with the characters. The protagonist in this book feels a bit one dimensional. She likes going to gigs in her free time and watching movies and she's obviously got some feminist ideas, but a part from that, even after reading the book, I don't feel like I really know her. That's why the book only got 3 stars for me. It was a fine read, but for me it was missing something. 

Trigger warning for fatphobia, the character talks about wanting to lose weight a lot and frequent exercising.