Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives

Translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton

A love story that feels both new and achingly true, capturing the intensity, uncertainties and intimacy of falling for someone.

Art student Isogai first models for one of his tutors, the much older Yuri, then begins a passionate affair with her. As he gets to know her better, he struggles to understand his own emotions and his place in the world, just as he yearns to be closer to her and for her to share more of herself with him.

Don’t Laugh at Other People’s Sex Lives was a smash-hit in Japan, winning the prestigious Bungei Prize, and selling over 250,000 copies. A touching portrait of late adolescence, with Isogai captured with exasperation, humour and tenderness, it is also, and above all else, an exploration of the exhilarating and destabilising experience of a love that defies prediction or explanation.

‘Razor-sharp emotional intelligence beneath a prose style that is as refreshing, as, well, a Diet Coke on a hot summer’s day . . . Pack[s] a devastatingly emotional wallop.’ Crack Magazine

‘A story full of nostalgia and beauty and hope. First love is perfectly imperfect, and Yamazaki renders it here with all the charm and respect that it deserves.’ Sarah Jessica Parker 

‘Slyly transgressive, singularly weird – a happy/sad confection of innocence to unsettling experience, and big feelings that go almost totally unsaid. Reminded me of Francoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse mixed with Bae Suah’s Nowhere to Be Found.’ Sharlene Teo 

‘A strange and beguiling love affair, one rich in all the distances and intimacies that pull new lovers together. I loved it. I haven’t devoured something like that in a long time.’ Naomi Wood