Mieko Kawakami is one of Japanese most notable upcoming young authors. She's won many awards for her novels and was knowledge by TIME magazine after just two of her novels were translated into English. I was too interested in her first novel that I was but her second novel titled Heaven, caught my eye after I read about the strong bullying themes.
A high school boy and girl are bullied continuously in their class. The boy has a lazy eye and the girl chooses not to take baths for personal reasons. They both try to find their own version of HEAVEN.
This book isn't very long and Kawakami holds no punches with the subject matter of bullying. Literally the whole book is the main character thinking through his torture by his tormentors. You could also call Heaven a kind of dairy for him. He actually tries to figure his bullies out, even having the guts to ask one of them why he was being bullied. Readers would think that it's because of his lazy eye. He even thinks that it's because of his lazy eye but, you come to find that this is the excuse he gives himself to stay a victim in this bully world. Most of the characters give me a major headache and the main character just tries to find something to hold on to. He tries to find sense in everything that people do when you have to realize that people do things without using common sense at all. There's no way that I would have stood there and let an associate to the guy who bullies me give me a whole monologue about why he does what he does. He would have got something thrown at him after awhile. Toxic friendship comes into play in Heaven's pages as well. The friendship seemed good for the guy until he started to level up from the girl, then things started to stink like she did.... I was most proud of the main character's progression in becoming more stable in his decisions. So called friends that can't be happy for you making moves to better yourself is not your friends. It doesn't matter if your friend is leaving you behind or not. You have to make the moves to better yourself as well so you can met your friends neck and neck. If not, then still be happy for them. Friends that can't do this need to be disposed of quickly. Heaven's overall conclusion is a big sigh of relief.... I felt that I let out a breath that I was holding in while reading the book the entire time.
I would recommend Mieko Kawakami's Heaven to readers who like raw storytelling that doesn't try to baby you. Kawakami's writing is true to reality with a bit of social commentary. Some readers will appreciate that and some will not.
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