Real World by Natsuo Kirino

If you frequent bookstores, the distinct covers of Natsuo Kirino's books would surely have caught your eye by now. Out, Grotesque and her latest Real World each have an opera-white face on the cover. The faces are a little creepy, all of them seem to possess a piercing stare that would make me feel like putting the book in a place where it would stop looking at me!

Creepy covers aside, I'm a fan of Kirino. She reveals the colder and darker side of Japan in her stories, quite different from the high-tech kawaii impression we have from the media.

In Real World, Worm, a teenage boy given the unfortunate nickname due to his demeanour, murders his mother and runs away. Toshi, who lives next door, and her three friends all get involved somehow, drawn to Worm for different reasons. The story is told from the individual perspectives of the four girls and Worm. In each chapter, you learn of their frustrations with society, and how they try to cope or shut themselves off from the pressures of the world around them.

The magic of Real World was how it drew me in as well - I could empathise with the characters, however distanced or unfamiliar I was to their troubles. There were also times I wanted them to grow up and stop feeling like the world should revolve around them, a projection of how I feel about the youth in Singapore today.
Oh well, till the next creepy faced book then. I give Real World 7 out of 10 ninja darts.