Kei Aono was born in Nagoya, Japan and studied at Tokyo Art university. After starting her career at an anime magazine, she worked as an editor at a publishing company. In 2006 she made her fiction debut with The Reason I Won't Quit, and in 2014 Bookstore Girls won the Grand Prize in the "Book I want made into a movie" category at the Shizuoka Bookstore Awards. It has since been adapted for television.