For All the Lonely Ones

 かがみの孤城 (Lit. trans. The Solitary Castle in the Mirror) by 辻村深月 (Tsujimura Mizuki) 

The Solitary Castle in the Mirror (2018) begins with first-year Kokoro who avoids going to middle school. Gradually we learn of the bullying that goes on and her parents' passivity and ignorance. One day when her parents are out, she is drawn to the mirror in her room as it begins to glow and ripple. Next thing she knows, she's inside a castle in the mirror world with six other middle schoolers, all in a game of 'finding the key to the make-a-wish-room.' But danger lurks: if someone overstays at the castle, the big bad wolf comes and devours them all.

As I pause here, I berate myself for not writing this review last week when I just finished the novel. Sometimes it works to my favour and my thoughts shift and slide into place. This time though, I recall blank when I think of what this book meant to me.

It could be worthwhile to dissect the narrative and evaluate it based on western YA expectations but that would be cruel. Shifting away from that, let me just say this is a book that has emotional weight but it doesn't come bearing down on you until the very end. It almost seems like the reader is being played with the way Tsujimura built that plot twist in, but in retrospect, the signs have always been there. 

Loneliness and togetherness are woven together by this band of outcasts. To an adult, the feeling of being ignored can be easily brushed off. But to twelve-year-old, that is the sound of your world collapsing around you. This is where Tsujimura excels in, capturing the emotional forces at play and how quickly they could render you devastated. The connections you form are more intense but also more volatile. Being friends at twelve seems like you'd be friends forever. But that forever only lasts until your best friend finds a new best friend. And so I wonder if Tsujimura intended this to be read by child readers who are supposed to sympathise with Kokoro and thus feel understood, or this is really for the child in the adult reader who feels both nostalgia and relief for this world that is no longer theirs.