Real World

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.

In a crowded Tokyo suburb, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer. When one of them, Toshi, discovers that her nextdoor neighbor has been brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor's son. But when he flees, taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers that rise from within them as well as from the world around them. Psychologically intricate and astute, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.

The Barnes & Noble Review

A 17-year-old Japanese high school girl is penciling in her eyebrows when she hears a crashing sound coming from next door. At first she thinks it might be a burglar, but when she encounters the boy next door, whom she and her friends have nicknamed Worm because of his "sluggish way of walking," he looks "happy and excited, like he was going on a date." He assures her it was nothing. By the end of the day, she will discover that the sound she heard was Worm beating his mother to death with a baseball bat. But instead of turning him in, the four teenage girls in Natsuo Kirino's Real World turn the matricidal murderer into a sort of antihero, lending him phones, money, and a bike in a twisted attempt to enter another world and to elude the control that adults exert over each of their lives.

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. Theres Toshi, the dependable one; Terauchi, the great student; Yuzan, the sad one, grieving over the death of her motherand 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 Toshis next-door neighbor is found brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbors son, a high school boy they nickname Worm. But when he flees, taking Toshis bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangersdangers they never could have even imaginedthat 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. Dans une banlieue de Tokyo, Toshiko, la sérieuse, Terauchi, la douée, Yuzan, la perdue, et Kirazin, la mondaine, passent le mois d'août dans une école spécialisée dans le bachotage en compagnie d'un de leurs voisins, surnommé le Ver. Lorsqu'elles comprennent que le Ver a assassiné sa mère, elles lui apportent leur aide, chacune à sa façon le considérant comme un anti-héros de la société japonaise