Jenny (Reading Envy)'s Reviews > Heaven

CW for violence, harm to children, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, self-harm.

Oof. Well I went looking for books from the new Booker International Prize longlist for 2022, and found this one in Hoopla. It was originally published in Japan in 2009, and published in the English translation by Sam Bett and David Boyd, the same team that translated Breasts and Eggs. (I was a bit critical of these two male translators with that book, as all narrators are women and talking about female health and bodies. In this case, the narrator is a teenaged boy, so I had no questions.)

A 14-year old boy with a lazy eye is referred to as "Eyes" by his classmates and is the victim of ongoing, outrageous bullying. He is befriended by a girl in his class, Kojima, who is also a victim of bullying, but admittedly exhibits strange behavior like not bathing or eating, deliberate acts in her own logic to connect to her father who left. They write letters about everything except their experiences at school.

There is a chilling scene where the boy asks one of the bullies WHY and the answer is the most nihilistic darkness I've ever heard - and this serves to mess with the boy even worse than the physical bullying.