A 14-year old boy is mercilessly bullied at school for his lazy eye - one day, he receives a note in his desk and a tentative friendship develops…but will it provide enough respite from the bullies?

This book is brutal, but excellent. The rigidity of the Japanese school system is wonderfully rendered, and you can feel wider societal constraints seeping through the novel. The (lack of) technology anchors the story in the 90s, but from what I’ve heard, the attitude in Japanese schools towards bullying and mental health hasn’t really changed, so it felt like I was reading a story that could be happening now, too. I couldn’t help but think about how the bullying would unfold in the age of smartphones. After school, the tormenting would no doubt continue online, and how much of the physical bullying would be filmed and that footage used to further torment the victims? (I’m thinking especially of an episode towards the end.) At the heart of the novel is an awkward friendship, forged through the shared traumatic experience of heavy bullying, and Kawakami explores the buoyancy that connection and feeling understood can bring, but also whether such a friendship can be maintained. I really enjoyed Kawakami’s writing - it was shrewdly observant and unexpectedly philosophical at times, though the episodes of bullying made for difficult reading. A brutal, thought-provoking look at bullying, the nature of friendship and societal rigidity in Japan.