The book is about a lonely Japanese girl in her thirties, trying to hang on through life by means of  alcool and sex. The book describes much about the Japanese working people of today, and its absence of limits, in good or bad.
Vibrator in-depth and highly skilled writing is richer in thoughts and in language than Snakes and earrings. All in all, those are two stories about lonely and (pretty) sick girls, the Japanese way. Paradoxally, the girl in Snakes and earrings sounded more mature than Rei from Vibrator, more into seeking ways of getting out, ways of being happy of what is there.

This is tending for me to say that Snakes and Earring was a better read, than Vibrator ; the emotion was better transcripted, the naturalness of the characters I could explain, understand grasp as well.
Even though I had a good time reading Mari Akasaka, a good third of the book (about 30 pages) lost my attention, focus and understanding of the two characters:

• The sickness of the girl is explained, but it kept my attention on how she went through life with such handicaps and disorders.
• The background of the guy is impressive, and scary (wonder where Mari got all the details from the Yakusa organizations she described so well). If such people can go freely in  Japan, the country doesn’t sound so safe anymore …

I guess, as the Guardian described it, that I should read the Miso Soup, from Ryuu Murakami .. and that’s what I’m on to now.