Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare

by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

From major new storytelling talent Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, a blazing, bodily, raucous journey through contemporary Hawaiian identity and womanhood.

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai'i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth.

A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman's fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.

Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Magical Realism, Queer, Contemporary, Feminism

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 29, 2023

About the author

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is the Japanese and Kanaka Maoli author of the story collection Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare (Bloomsbury 2023), a USA Today national bestseller. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Granta, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Tin House Winter Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and is a Visiting Faculty in Fiction at Antioch University Los Angeles. A Fiction Editor for No Tokens journal, she lives in Honolulu.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently became interested in the Hawaiian culture because my community offers a Hula dance class. My beloved teacher, a beautiful Hawaiian woman who loves her culture, educates us on the history of hula and the Hawaiian culture. I look forward to my 1 hour a week, in which I learn about a fascinating culture while exercising! Win win.

“Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare” is a short story collection encompassing women’s issues along with Hawaiian folk tale, fairy tales, superstitions, and of course, Elvis.

I chose the audio version because I wanted to be immersed in the culture by hearing Hawaiian vernacular, including pidgin Hawaiian. I enjoyed listening to narrator Michelle Sekine voicing the collection which vary from Kauai residents displaced by U.S. military bombing drills, the psychological cost of a Brazilian waxing, to a hotel that offers fertility enhancements. The stories are unsettling. Some I didn’t really understand but enjoyed listening to Sekine’s voice.

After the devastating fires in Lahanina occupied my news feeds, these stories hold a particular importance to me. My indigenous Hawaiian friend, Debbie, sparked my interest in Hawaii. This short story collection cemented my fascination.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the eye-catching book cover — and a title that had me pondering - ‘what’s up?’ - to the blog-description….I knew I wanted to read these stories:
“Set in Hawaii. Debut story collection from a Japanese and Maoli (native Hawaiian) writer …… following “a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghost of colonization. This is a Hawaii where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth”……
“a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets”.

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto doesn’t shy away from uncomfortably - awkwardness—shaming—betrayal—frenzy & fury. She’s fearless! Bold! I respect her for it.
Megan’s writing is unflinching forthright. With full-on force …..her writing is immodestly confident. She writes with head-on intensity and raptness. Her stories are riveting — perceptively attuned to freedom and justice ….and her storytelling energetically — even educational-engaging.

Hawaii is my Honeymoon Home. For the past 45 years, Paul and I usually go every December.
I’m familiar with the lushness, beauty, beaches, surfing, rainforests, volcanoes, whale watching, birds, flowers, hiking, sunsets, rainbows, — and I’ve read James Michener 1400+ page historical epic novel “Hawaii”…..
but there was a type of discovery in these native stories that I had never read before……about the deep sensory ancestral experience and how legend history affected women.
The Hawaiian islands are surrounded by many FASCINATING LEGEND stories ……of Gods and men, love and betrayal, goodness, and evil.
For the indigenous Hawaiian people, (scary for women), the legends are not just ‘myths’ — they are historical truths, integrated ……
I was left with a deeper understanding of safety needs for Native Hawaiian Women…..and other social issues linked with trauma of colonization.
I also came away with more awareness about superstitions and the power they can have over people in every day life.

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto gives us eleven stories. I needed to read them slowly. I never read more than two stories in one sitting.
I enjoyed savoring each one (ha- and I’ve pages of notes on each one) > memory reminders for myself -including a few new Hawaiian terms, I picked up along the way.
I visited Google (not too much, but a little), to clarity a few Hawaiian terms.
One day — I read up on ‘famous’ supernaturals — terrifying mysterious - legends - that are still told in Hawaii today.

I gave myself a little expanded ghostly-folklore legend/myths education.
I had fun learning about traditional Hawaiian mythology and religion that has had ties to the ancient Polynesian beliefs— that have been passed down through generations.

I enjoyed these stories — (Megan is incredibly gifted —filling a void in literature that we just haven’t had enough of).
I also enjoyed my extra -curricular Hawaiian/legend studies…..(which never would have happened without the inspiration of our author and her stories.

So I’ll review the first story… the title story—
(leave other chosen stories for other reviewers?/)…..
but I have notes and all the stories should anybody be interested in asking me more.

“Every Drop is A Man’s Nightmare” . . . . .
Lopaka is *Sadie’s* stepfather. Her mother is Kahea.
They are driving from Ka’a’awa to Palolo where they have a cottage. (This story belongs to Sadie).
Sadie, twelve-years-of-age…..at the start ……just got her period for the first time. There are blotches of blood soaked into the backseat. She tells her mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat that she is bleeding.
Mom says, “Oh, honey, it’s about time”.
Suddenly, their car comes to a quick screeching jolt. They just hit a pua’a (a Hawaiian name for pig).
Kahea doesn’t care about old wise, tales, and island origin stories,
but Lopaka and his family believe in ‘rotten luck’. (and the repercussions they trigger).
They believe in ‘Night Marchers’ (spirits-deadly ghosts) and Pele’s wrath, (an old Hawaiian curse about moving anything negative such as rock or sand from one island to the next), etc.
They never whistle at night, and they don’t sleep with their prostate toes pointing toward the bedroom door.

Its Lopaka’s birthday: thirty-two….. (family and friends are gathered at the cottage to celebrate)….
and of course they are celebrating with Lopaka’s favorite food: kalua pig.
Lopaka has been in Sadie’s life for a little over a year and he has taught her native legends. He has also taught her (unfortunately) fear, shame, and unworthiness.
Sadie learned a lot that night at that birthday party.
She learned that in the high days of “ali’i wahine ka wa haumia (bleeding women), were regarded a reverence, otherwise reserved for royalty.
The rest of this coming-of-age story for Sadie (college, Jason, educational & awareness awakening, marriage, etc), is marvelous…
so tender & beautiful….with a very - real - powerful message about self-love, body acceptance, respect, self-growth, healthy self- encouragement, trust, about men, (they are not all dickheads), and about love.

A few of my other favorite stories were: (with similar vital themes)
“Madwoman”
“Ms. Amelia’s Salon for Women in Charge”
“Hotel Molokai”
and
“Some Things I Know About Elvis”

Extraordinary debut…
Hair-raising - menacing - bona fide - genuine to the core - outlandishly ingenious!

5 beaming stars.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CygMm4brk...

A gorgeous, disturbing collection of horror and magic. Lyrical and dreamy, each story blurs the lines between worlds, histories, perceptions, and shimmers with the many different, razor-sharp sides of truths. It is a beautiful compilation of Hawaiian culture and traditions, immersive and rich, told in a truthful and hard hitting voice. It discusses the blessings and curses of feminine existence, the rage, desire, and never ending struggle for agency and control of their own stories, for the right to live authentically, with no judgement and no expectations. A stunningly impactful debut.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember who told me that I wasn't going to like this book but I started it with low expectations on account of it and ended up really liking it, found it quite delightful actually.

It has a touch of the weird, a touch of the dark (if you enjoyed the blend of weird and dark in the Never Whistle at Night collection you will probably like this one) and it centers women characters, if you're familiar with my reviews you probably know that I'm absolutely here for the weird, unhinged and/or angry girlies. Also, there's an Elvis impersonator infestation in one of the stories so you know, that kind of weird that's not afraid to be a tad ridiculous or over the top.

The imagery was great and the stories were smart without pretention and nothing came across as trying too hard.

4.5 rounded up.

[Anneliese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. These stories are haunting and heavy. There aren’t monsters or murderers—but the works are filled with ghosts and the grotesque. The stories get better and better as the book progresses, and I would maybe recommend reading them in order. You will like this book if you enjoyed “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed” by Mariana Enríquez, “Manmade Monsters” by Andrea L. Rogers, or “Night of the Living Rez” by Morgan Talty. I leave this work thinking a lot about the horrors and wonders of femininity and racial identity.

Thanks NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the digital ARC :)

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh wow, this was not for me.

[s · Rating 3 out of 5]

each of these stories use hawaiian "superstitions" (the author's word choice) to delve into the complexities of hawaiian and japanese womanhood, whether that is as a daughter, mother, sister, friend, etc. all the stories felt deeply interwoven with one another, presenting an intergenerational and geographically wide-reaching collection that grapples with monstrosity, the messiness of embodiment in all its different forms, and a felt tension between the uncanny and the everyday.

i really wanted to love this collection, but none of the stories grabbed me. it took me months to finish this, but i am a bad short story reader. all the stories felt like they were constantly at a simmer--even when they hit their climactic points, i did not feel any sense of movement in the story. the characters also felt a little flat to me. if i had to choose standouts, i would say the first story in the collection after the list of superstitions, and "temporary dwellers."

one thing that stood out to me was that many of the stories' tensions of power felt organized around a haole/hawaiian binary. this is of course true to history and the present, but i did feel a palpable absence of engagement with asian, and particularly japanese, femininities and its impact on beauty and power in hawaiʻi. the story "touch me like one of your island girls" brushed up against this topic but did not engage it very fully. many of the characters we are focalized through are of both hawaiian and japanese descent, and there is not much interior engagement with that aspect of the character's sense of self, and the functions and political dynamics of japanese identity and asian identity more broadly in hawaiʻi are not addressed. to be clear, i am not saying that i wish japanese identity was prioritized over the engagement with hawaiian identity. i just personally wish there was a bit more complexity with the way the political dynamics of HI were depicted, especially with the stories set on oʻahu and in honolulu more specifically. TLDR i think asian settler colonialism pulses beneath the surface of this collection but never surfaces.

[AndiReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provocative, unsettling, just as it is titled, these stories are not soon to leave their vivid images in your mind.

Native Hawaiian and Japanese writer Kamalei Kakimoto writes short, spiky stories that cut with a knife as they gently caress you with the ghosts of indigenous peoples are their lore of the islands. This is a writer to follow - an amazing, confident, larger than life writer who grabs humanity and thrusts it in your face. Take your time with these stories, read them one at a time. Remember this name, her words will haunt you. #EveryDropisamansnightmare #Megankamaleikakimoto
#Bloomsbury

[Kristin | ktlee.writes · Rating 5 out of 5]

EVERY DROP IS A MAN’S NIGHTMARE by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is a fierce short story collection whose characters’ emotions and quandaries burst forth from the page with fervor and unapologetic truth in all the messiness that entails. Set in Hawaii, the collection reminded me of Anthony Veasna So’s AFTERPARTIES in its boldness, its incisive depiction of a community without essentializing its members, and its keen observations of relational dynamics.

Interwoven with mythology and sensual descriptions, yet tenacious in their unflinching honesty, these stories have seared themselves into my sinews. Brilliantly scaffolded by the first story, “A Catalogue of Kānaka Superstitions,” the collection explores fragmented families, gender expectations, and the distance between our hopes and realities.

Some of my favorites include:

⋆ “Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare” – a young girl’s encounter with a wild pig on the Pali highway disturbs her pregnancy years later

⋆ “Temporary Dwellers” – Kauai residents are displaced by U.S. military bombing drills

⋆ “Madwoman” – one of the most heart wrenching depictions of the tensions of motherhood that I’ve read

⋆ “Ms. Amelia’s Salon for Women in Charge” – a woman must decide whether to exchange a personality trait for free Brazilian waxing

⋆ “Hotel Molokai” – a girl’s coming-of-age trip to visit Kaule o Nanahoa brings her uncomfortably close to family abuse

Kakimoto writes from a female and Native Hawaiian/Japanese perspective that is sorely needed. Reading this collection in the middle of my Booker longlist marathon was such a powerful experience, as it reminded me of how exhilarating literature can be when liberated from overtold narratives. I hope to see EVERY DROP IS A MAN’S NIGHTMARE on the National Book Awards longlist coming up on 9/15!

Thank you @bloomsburybooksus for the ARC and @netgalley for the eARC.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is one of these authors that you read once and then you wait forever for them to write something else. Her writing is exquisite, devastating, and at times morbid. I’m not someone who seeks good writing, but this blew my mind.

The stories were quirky but they had a strange undertone I can’t really pinpoint, like I felt violated - as a woman that has this place in society, as a woman that has periods, violated like a community that has outside presence, violated because the US is bombing the islands and no one can’t do anything but stare. It’s also strange because while I love me my feminism, the stories had a lot of explicitly sexy things that I usually hate. But I didn’t mind it at all, I think it added to this strange undertone.

- ‘A Catalogue of Kānaka Superstitions, as Told by Your Mother’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐. This one was interesting and it progressively hits harder. It’s, as the title indicates, a catalogue of superstitions that a mother shares with her daughter. Some of them show up later on in other stories which was cute as well.
- ‘Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Okay, if ANYONE read this, they would think I’d give it 1 star. But it was good. It’s about a chubby girl who lives with her mom and her stepdad. She gets her first period and then we see her fall in love, marry, get an eating disorder, and then become pregnant. The ending was brutal. All of it was brutal. I loved it.
- ‘Story of Men’. ⭐⭐⭐. The dryer breaks. Inside, there’s a baby. Wait, it’s not a baby. Well, let’s adopt it and see how the family reacts to it. It was cool.
- ‘Temporary Dwellers’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Kaua‘i is being bombed and the narrator’s mother brings a girl from their home as a charity case. The two girls fall in love, go to high school together, and start caring about how the US is destroying Kaua‘i. Just an amazing story. Lots of food for thought and criticism against what the US military has done to Hawaii.
- ‘Madwomen’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. A woman has had a hapa son because she had a relationship with a haole (a foreigner). She tells him a made-up story about a madwoman who kills around the sea. This was such a bittersweet story. I felt the woman loved Toby, but as the story moved forward, I thought she regretted him. She felt like she wasn’t enough too. It was really good.
- ‘Ms. Amelia’s Salon for Women in Charge’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Waxing is expensive, but Amelia doesn’t charge money, she takes personality traits. So quirky.
- ‘Hotel Molokai’. ⭐⭐⭐. A girl goes with her grandma to touch the penis stone so she can get pregnant later on. She misses her mom. It was okay.
- ‘Aiko, the Writer’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Aiko has been told time and time again that she must never write about the Night Watchers. But she does. And now the manuscript is… vibrating. The Night Watchers are watching her. Like, this sounds so ominous, but it was such a quiet slow story. Still awesome.
- ‘Some Things I Know About Elvis’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Lol okay so this girl goes on a Tinder date and her day is suddenly infested (that is the word) by Elvis impersonators. Hilarious. Also about friendships that we want to keep and worry about.
- ‘Touch Me Like One of Your Island Girls: A Love Story’. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Again, a story about old friends that turn into acquaintances. But also about an island girl that goes to an audition for a porno and gets the job. This was quirky and it was meaningful and it was awesome.
- ‘The Love and Decline of the Corpse Flower’. ⭐⭐⭐ and a half. Grandma is dead and someone’s brought a huge stinky corpse flower for her. Now the narrator has to keep it. Or has she? And, did I mention the corpse flower is alive? I hated reading it but the ending made it worth it. It was sort of anticlimactic, I didn’t expect it and I went ‘oh’ out loud when it ended.

I’m so looking forward to picking her up again!

Favorite bits:
Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare
Her step-uncles have grown fond of calling her the garbage disposal—she’ll mop your food scraps clean, if you let her. This isn’t the worst she’s heard about her body.
—
She learns too much about her culture, things she wishes to unknow. She reads that in the high days of the ali‘i, wāhine ka wā haumia, or bleeding women, were regarded with a reverence otherwise reserved for royalty. They were kapu in a different way, a way that safeguarded their menstruation rather than debased it, so much so that the bleeding wāhine were isolated in the hale pe‘a for the duration of their monthly period. The separation between men and women was enforced by a strict kapu—however long the menstruation lasted, the bleeding wāhine and their kāne were to exist in separate physical spaces. Anything less was shameful, pīlau, not because the women were indecent creatures, but rather because the women were gods.
—
How can anyone expect a bride to know how for enjoy unless she resembles a skeleton of herself? She stops eating meat, tells herself and others it’s for the wedding entirely, and while this is true, there’s something else, too, a hesitation.

Madwomen
I lay a soft Hawaiian quilt over Toby’s lap and knit a tress of his whispy hair between my fingers while an old Jason Bourne film animates from the television. For a while I proposed Pixar movies, shows on the Disney Channel, PAW Patrol, and that Irish animated series with the child veteranarian who nurses anthropomorphic toys. None of it took. But Matt Damon scaling buildings as a CIA assassin riddled with amnesia? This shit captivates Toby like nothing else.

Aiko, the Writer
Because if she were being honest, she hadn’t felt safe in Hawai‘i for a long time. The island was like a twisted and perverted organ whose guts had spoiled long ago. Today, haoles outnumbered kānaka ‘ōiwi one hundred to one. She knew few folks who still practiced the old traditions, idolized akua, revered and heeded the superstitions of generations past. What’s worse, they were all better for it. Her relatives who’d conformed to the ways of the white residents had made themselves rich. Impossibly, they purchased their homes. Some even had an expanding 401(k) about which to brag at family gatherings. Reverse assimilation, then, seemed the only fighting way forward.

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really strong collection. I have never read anything of joint Japanese-Hawaiian origin before and so it was brilliant to explore both cultures in these short stories. They were really tense and brutal and the first story about a girl who just won't stop bleeding was really visceral and had he hooked from the beginning. I loved how some of the stories seemed to intersect with each other and felt like each one was really fascinating in it's own right. Would definitely recommend this book as it's a really strong collection.

[Carey · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading this collection, even weeks later as I write this review, my thoughts remain jumbled. This is such an odd short story collection and I don't entirely understand why these stories were brought together here. Of course, there are some repetitive themes, but they often felt like surface level explorations frequently deprived of deeper analysis or context. The mix of literary fiction, horror, and elements of science fiction felt overly eclectic and disjointed. In some stories, I found myself fully immersed in the vivid imagery that the author created, yet in others, I struggled to grasp what was happening. This inconsistency left me questioning the cohesion of the collection as a whole.

The stories I did enjoy often had endings that rather spoiled the story. These endings were sometimes ambiguous, leaving me unsure of what had transpired, and other times they seemed to build towards a climax that ultimately felt unresolved or rushed. This recurring ambiguity gave many stories an unfinished feel, as if they were simmering without ever reaching a full boil.

The author’s fondness for metaphor was evident, but these metaphors were not always clearly articulated. There was an overreliance on flowery language that often substituted for substantive storytelling. Consequently, I found the execution of the short story format to be lacking in the majority of the collection. There are very few stories I remember fondly from this collection and it was more for the integration of Hawaiian mythology and characters than the actual language or substance in the storytelling.

Overall, I would not recommend this short story collection. The blend of genres and styles did not coalesce effectively, and the majority of the stories failed to deliver a satisfying narrative experience.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories.The authors writing is so creative brings the stories the characters alive.Each story was a gem enjoyed them all. #netgalley#bloomsbury

[Jennifer Givhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved completely.

[Olivia Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

really beautiful work about hawaiian women and mythology. she dances so gracefully between reality and legend without losing sight of truth. i haven’t read much from hawaiian authors, and this was a great introduction // one of the stories was set in austin and it made me so nostalgic…like ive been to that target

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
speculative fiction, gory, queer. girls full of wanting, myths and their hauntings. I wished some of the stories went even further.

for fans of Gods of Want, Salt Slow.

disappointed to see fatphobic comments in almost every story :/

e-ARC from netgalley

[Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have often advised against ingesting short stories back-to-back in one reading session. However, here, each story is so unique and differentiated from its sibling that a reader can readily discern one from another. Each feels separate and complete. I marvel at the author's imagination in conjuring storylines and worlds as bizarre, quirky and irreverent as these.

All are based in Hawai'i and feature some aspect of its cultural beliefs and practices, history (of being colonized and its sovereign royal government overthrown) and social commentary, and more often, feminine power. One of her stories can be read here: https://granta.com/touch-me-like-one-...

Two other items recur. References to "porte cochere" in front of buildings and "li hing" snacks appear frequently.

I also often name my favorites in a short story collection but I won't here. All the stories were not my favorites but each story wowed or intrigued me in some way. I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it readily. I will definitely read this author's future works.

She wrote many gorgeous and/or evocative clauses or passages. Several quotes:

A stethoscope wreaths her neck like a hibiscus lei...

All the while the thing expands inside her like rice cooked in a too-small pot.

....sees Jason’s fingers coiled around her palm like a cobra constricting its prey...Jason leaps forward, opens his arms, takes the towels. He brings them to Sadie, and her eyes swim glassy before she can see what’s folded inside the bundle, and her breathing grows haggard, soft, then loud as crashing cymbals, then quiet again. Still. Her head tilts toward the bruise blooming on her hand. She sleeps for thirty-two hours while they stitch all her tears.

How the ache must’ve pushed down her throat like a brick.

Yes, age had weathered his body and his mind, but it had also weathered his composure, leaving him a fiction of the man who’d once wooed her.

Shards of human voice splintered down the side of the house...

I am more assured than ever before that what I want to say is something different entirely, something nurturing and vulnerable that sounds more like a plea than a shallow criticism.

...she thinks of Bennett, whose favorite food is fried pickles and anything soured by time.

Grime was everywhere, threatening allergies and other dismal futures.

No girl could be afforded such a pleasure without the accompanying shame with which to share it.

Then again, what was shave ice if not a beverage rendered solid?

Morning was just breaking over the shoreline, sending a liquid sheet of light to tango over the sand and the blue seas. Slats of gold descended through the tree boughs,

Don’t bother with accessibility. Even when you write white, the white readers won’t make sense of it. Bother with specificity. Be exacting and specific. Write in ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i when you can. Write dialogue in pidgin, because dialect is important. Most importantly, honor the kapu. Do not write about what you cannot write about.

Perhaps it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, to approach these pages before they breathed. And maybe the vibrations were exactly that—her words breathing, snatching, stretching, expanding to fit the scaffolding of their stories.

Sara wants to return to Boston, where no one even knows she is Hawaiian or what that could possibly mean. Where she doesn’t have to answer any prodding questions, because there’s no one around to ask them.

She was breathing so horribly, like broken fingers grasping for rope...

The sky sweeps over us, a swath of black, blinking white stars purling through the darkness.

[Wendell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every Drop Is A Man’s Nightmare is highly competent MFA-program writing, but I’m not convinced it’s a whole lot else. Kakimoto’s prose is so calculated and deliberate, so jagged and unspontaneous that the reader sometimes feels he’s making his way over rocks. One can imagine Kakimoto mining a thesaurus for synonyms or taking pleasure in her daring stylistic choices when she forces verbs into odd and uncomfortable positions (“Heat spindles through her pelvis,” e.g., or “She pockets the clothing in her purse … then climbs onto the reclined spa bed, the draped tissue paper splintering under her weight”). She wants you to know she’s a serious person seriously writing serious literature.

Kakimoto’s effort to create a Hawaiian milieu seems only partly successful, and her choice to sprinkle her text generously with words and phrases in ʻōlelo Hawai‘i is forced at times, even performative. “Are you noticing the difference and diversity?” she seems to be saying on page after page.

Hoping to destabilize and disrupt the straight, white, Western ground of being in mainstream literary fiction is a worthy quest, but writers—and Kakimoto is no exception—are finding out how tough that task is when they take their stand from smack in the middle of that very mainstream.

Another way to think about this is to ask what kind of audience Kakimoto imagined she was aiming her writing at. I would argue that the approach in Every Drop Is A Man’s Nightmare makes the answer clear—and predictable. (One minor example comes in her publisher’s blurb for the book, which mentions the “superstitions born of the islands [that] take on the weight of truth.” In a book not written for the sensibilities of a colonized Western mind, would they be called “superstitions”?)

Her stint at the Michener Center and residencies in programs like the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference taught her the unmistakable “MFA in Fiction” style that is so evident here, and her over-long acknowledgements section name checks Elizabeth McCracken, Amy Hempel (who gets thanked three times), Tin House, and Laura van den Berg, among others, including her alma mater, Kamehameha Schools, an expensive private prep school in Honolulu and perhaps the most powerful commercial real estate owner on Oʻahu.

It’s all about as conventional as it gets. I’ll be interested to see whether Kakimoto eventually leaves all of that behind and breaks into her own voice.

[Beachcomber · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded down. This sounded interesting, and I picked it as it would also fully tick off Hawaii on my “read around the world map”, being both set there and by a native author. So why the low score?

Basically for me, it was just not good. I wanted to learn more - I faithfully looked up almost every Hawaiian word mentioned in the writing, to see the language and what it meant. But what wasn’t clear from the blurb, was that virtually every story had some crude reference to amongst other things: breasts, thighs, vaginas, c*nts, penises, clitoris, menstrual blood, orgasms… and probably several other things I’ve just blocked out by now. I’m no prude, but the first story talks about a teenage girl who I think has her first period, and keeps sticking her fingers in her underwear and coating them with the blood. Never once mentioning washing them. And it kind of goes on from there. I reckon half the (female) narrators of the stories have their hands in their pants.

Just not for me at all, sadly. I persevered to the end as I’d paid for the book - if it had been a library borrow, I’d probably have DNFed it and found another book for the world challenge.

[Mackenzie Clevenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0 - as much as I hate to just base a review off of how much a book reminded me of another book, that’s kind of where I’m left with this one.
The writing overall was quiet nice, and all the stories contained did have some strong themes of femininity, sexuality, etc. that leaned into horror at times. For that reason, I can’t help but feel like this collection feels very similarly to “Her Body And Other Parties.” The main difference is that these stories all take place in Hawai’i or are related to Hawaiin folklore, which was an aspect that I did enjoy and thought connected the stories in another meaningful way.
I wish I had to more to say on this book, but I think it’s one of those situations where it just didn’t really mesh with me. I acknowledge it was well written and it is deserving as credit, I just don’t think it really spoke to me personally

[Pia Solywoda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably a great book but I cannot get past the amount of bleeding, cramping, anemia and confusion that besets the young narrator in the first part of the book. My Vagus nerve is overactive and has threatened to lay me down if I continued reading about this poor girls unfortunate pregnancy and God-forbid, sexual encounters with her insensitive young husband during some of her most vulnerable episodes. Spot on narration by a local person from Hawaii. Fascinating cultural references and folklore. I just don’t have the fortitude to push past all the blood.

[idiomatic · Rating 4 out of 5]

banger New Voice TM!! star docked literally bc i don't like short fiction that much and the number of authors on this earth who can make me overcome the frustration of reading a short story collection by choice numbers in the single digis and also because frankly when an author is really hung up on Ovarian Themes even if she's not terfing about them i'm always a bit like, okay, relax. HOWEVER: i'm hype for her novel!

[Leona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up in Hawaii so I understand the cultural references in these dark stories. I liked the short story format but couldn’t find cohesion, just repetitive themes. The time settings seemed off, some stories seemed set years ago but then a cell phone would be used. I don’t know if this collection would pique someone’s interest in Hawaiian culture; for me it was not satisfying. This definitely delivered dark tales.

[Aliyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a 3.5 stars. This collection of short stories blends female experience, identity, and Hawaiian culture in a way I’ve never read before. What I loved was that there was no dampening or explaining of the language or terms, but the contexts and stories gave you an understanding without needing to stop and explain.

[Buddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maika’i nui nā mo’olelo i kēia puke. Mahalo nui no ka ‘ike.

[Sumit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will break your heart and fill it with magic at the same time. If you are the kind of person who can't be among the sands and lush vegetation of Hawai'i with feeling the ghosts of its history, this book is for you. There is so much of the old legends here, some told explicitly and others merely referenced, hinted at, and evoked with the lightest of brushstrokes; in every case they are a haunting presence that makes itself felt in every page. Add to that the tension between natives, hapa, and haole, all existing together in an uneasy equilibrium amongst old wounds that cannot be easily forgiven. Within that liminal world between the living and the dead, between the ancestors and the keiki of the modern world, between the natives and the visitors, the author unfolds stories that will make you deeply uncomfortable but richer for the experience. These are tales where the beauty comes not from a cliched sparkle of hope at the end of the struggle, but rather from the unbearable intensity of the struggle itself.

To know that this is the author's debut book is particularly humbling; it's easily one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read, not only in terms of the inventiveness and power of the stories but also the exceptional craft of language.

Go find this book now, you will not regret it. And tell no one of the Night Marchers.

[Camilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeously haunting prose!! I didn’t enjoy a few of the stories, I found some to be a bit incomplete. However, the ones I loved had such intricate explorations of womanhood, motherhood, the spectrum of femininity, desire, and of course blood - all from the lense of Hawaiian women.

This collection juxtaposes the gruesome with the beautiful all in one! Kakimoto is so talented :)

**check trigger warnings before reading

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I was the kind of person that could like this kind of literature but I think I just need to accept the fact that I’m not. It’s the kind of writing that blew me away when I first read Angela Carter as a teen with all those allusions to forbidden things like sex and menstruation but that doesn’t really work so well for me now.

I read it alongside a novel set in some of the darkest episodes of World War Two and found these stories to be a bleaker read somehow - which made me think as obviously that is ridiculous. My only conclusion so far is that there is a subset of contemporary (female in particular) writing that is much more serious minded and doesn’t mollycoddle the reader with the interludes of humour or humanity that I think I need that in my reading even if (or especially when?) the subject matter is fundamentally sad or tragic.

Having said all of that I did like how Hawaiian folklore and culture formed the basis of the stories, even if the stories themselves didn’t entirely work for me and ultimately none of the issues that I had are necessarily the books fault - I just need to learn that this kind of writing is not for me and stop being attracted to it!

[Rachel Fraker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took away 2 stars because some of the language felt crude for the sake of shock value rather than to make any real point. Even for an anthology, some themes felt repetitive. A few lines felt a little too preachy to be taken super seriously.

That being said, Kakimoto has a skill for using simple words to paint vivid scenes. Specifically, the way she describes people and their bodies scratches an itch in my brain. I’m not someone who easily imagines what I’m reading, but “Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare” is dripping with Hawaiian life and plops you down in the middle of each scene with ease.

I picked this book up per the recommendation of a local Honolulu bookstore employee, who described it as a feminist anthology. As a feminist, I’m delighted that “Every Drop…” doesn’t go the strong independent girlboss route, but rather the gritty, brutally honest human route. These stories embrace the taboo: sex work, superstition, masturbation, menstruation, abuse, race, and postpartum psychosis are all confronted head-on. The women in these stories are embraced for all that they are, and they get to be many things all at once. They get to be strong and beautiful. They get to be wicked and brutal. They get to be complex and human.

This is not a comfortable book. I know plenty of people who would be wildly offended or even horrified by some of the themes. This is my praise, not criticism, to the anthology. Kakimoto does not hold back on her opinions of Hawaiian culture and how non-Hawaiian people interact with it. If you yourself are not Hawaiian (which I am not), be ready to feel on edge. If you have a specific idea of what motherhood should look like, be ready to feel queasy. Drop all expectations and just listen.

The language is simple, but the characters certainly are not. Regardless of how much you relate to it, Kakimoto’s perspective is, at the very least, provocative and worth discussing. “Every Drop…” could have benefited from a good polishing, but I would read more work from this author if she came out with it.

[Layla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A phenomenal collection of stories imbued with Hawaiian mythology, sapphic lust, and female body horror throughout the lifespan. Throughout the stories, we witness how Hawaiian (female) bodies, cultural practices, and stories are exoticised and commodified to be consumed by outsiders. It really got me reflecting on the ethics of tourism, and how representations of an entire culture through the lens of tourism has shaped how I’ve viewed Hawaii up until now. This was a collection that was thoroughly unapologetic to mainstream audiences, refusing to translate the many Hawaiian words and nuances used throughout. It’s a little jarring at first, but I began to realise just how powerful the act of refusal to translate is as I made my way through the stories. My three favourite stories were (1) Temporary Dwellers, (2) Aiko, the Writer, and (3) Touch me Like One of Your Island Girls: A Love Story. Although many of us probably go into this collection looking to “learn something about a new culture,” I think that this goes beyond that, getting you to question what it really means to consume these stories as an outsider.