Real World

I just finished Real World by Natsuo Kirino. I'm not sure how I found this book. I was perusing the books at Barnes and Noble and this seemed to be a great "up and coming" author so I had Real world transferred to my local library and I just finished it. First let me show you what the blurb on the book says:

A stunning new work of the feminist noir that Natsuo Kirino defined and made her own in her novels Out and Grotesque.

In a crowded residential suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer and endless “cram school” sessions meant to ensure entry into good colleges. There’s Toshi, the dependable one; Terauchi, the great student; Yuzan, the sad one, grieving over the death of her mother—and trying to hide her sexual orientation from her friends; and Kirarin, the sweet one, whose late nights and reckless behavior remain a secret from those around her. When Toshi’s next-door neighbor is found brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor’s son, a high school boy they nickname Worm. But when he flees, taking Toshi’s bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers—dangers they never could have even imagined—that rises from within them as well as from the world around them.

Psychologically intricate and astute, dark and unflinching, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.


Sounded really interesting...psychologically intricate? ...dark and unflinching? HHmmmm....

This is a book about 4 friends and one neighboring boy. It was written in Japanese, (I of course read the translated version having no idea how to read Japanese or English itself sometimes.) therefore some things may have been lost in translation.


***Spoiler alert*****

The book begins with Toshi who hears a strange noise outside while she is getting ready for school. As she leaves, she runs into the next door neighbor boy who she has nicknamed Worm. Worm is a pale sullen boy, but on this day he seems happy and actually talks to Toshi. When Toshi gets out of school she finds her bike and cell phone has been stolen and when she gets home she finds out Worm's mother has been murdered and Worm hasn't been seen all day. Later that evening Toshi receives a call from Worm, who has her phone and bike. Seems that Worm has called her three best friends too. Each chapter is told from the perspective of each friend and from Worm himself. We learn about each friend as each one gets involved in Worm's escape. Yuzan helps him because she knows what it is like to not have a mother, Toshi helps him by not sharing her suspicions with the police, Kirarin actually meets him and runs with him, only Terauchi refuses to help him, but this also sets forth a course of consequences.

I really didn't get the "deep" psychological insight. Perhaps seeing all that I do on TV here in America I have become desensitized. There were 4 girls who felt drawn to this boy because of the "adventure" he could bring. But really, if a boy who just killed his mother with a bat called a teenage girl, would she want to run off with him? Want to sleep with him? I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm too old and out of touch with these kids today. Maybe the Japanese teenagers would and do feel the way these characters do. The blurb on the book promised so much more than what I got and I felt disappointed.

I would have to give this a 2 out of 5