This Hardcover Book item from Knopf was reviewed on 4-Nov-2008. Search ISBN:0307267571 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Real World Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS Qualifying Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General AAS Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Hard-Boiled Mystery Mystery & Thr . Click the following link to view the cover of Real World. Related topics: General AAS. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. Contemporary. Subjects. Books. General AAS. Subjects. Books. requestid: aa54597f-0293-44d6-8033-9155cdeeb1eb
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1) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. ´Real World´ is a short novel of four Japanese girlfriends who entangle themselves with a high school boy on the run for killing his mother. Yes, it is all rather shocking at how indifferent these girls are to the horror of the situation. And in the end everything comes crashing down.
Although shrewdly observed and well written, ´Real World´ is somewhat of a let down. It pales in comparison to Kirino´s horror masterpiece ´Out´ or the very good ´Grotesque´. Actually the book is similar to ´Grotesque´ in that it focuses on psychological analysis of Japanese girls. But ´Real World´ is too short with too many characters; the author glosses over them such that the reader doesn´t get into their heads.
Bottom line: certainly a worthy read for those interested in modern Japanese youth and/or are fans of the author.¤ 2) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. A group of college (high school in US) age girls attending a cram school get to do something different in their lives from norm, protect a boy who murdered his mother. They think it is cool and really exciting to be able to do this. Their lives seem to belong to others who tend to be distant and not too involved with them. Parents come and go, schools bully students and judge them on success, there isn´t a lot of care for these children. So when the boy performs the ultimate act, the girls protect him and aid in his escape. What can become of crawling so far away from the normal? Unfortunately, most of it is not very good. A thought provoking novel of cultural disconnect and how people react when they are not fully cared for.¤ 3) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. This 207 page 6X9" book with five characters and many unfamiliar place and object names was a tough slog. The characters were Tokyo high school students attending outside cram schools to qualify for college. They were a brain, a lesbian, a matricide, and one betrayed by her lover. The last few pages were slow reading, because I had repeatedly to stop to wipe away tears.¤ 4) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. Although Toshi Yamanaka is still officially on her summer holidays, she´s isn´t having the most enjoyable break - in an attempt to get the best grades possible, she´s having to attend cram school. She lives in Suginami-ku, a residential area Tokyo that´s grown a little more crowded in recent years. The family who loves next door to Toshi moved in two years ago, and they haven´t made a great impression...the parents comes across as snobbish, while the son seems a little strange. Although he and Toshi are around the same age, they have never actually spoken - and, because of his demeanour, Toshi has nicknamed him ´Worm´. One morning, just as she´s on her way out to cram school, Toshio hears a couple of strange crashes from the Worm´s apartment - at first she worries Worm´s home is being burgled, but she´s a little relieved when she sees Worm leaving the building.
Toshi and Worm have never actually spoken, but he hasn´t made much of an impression - she views him as a nerdy, gloomy loner, someone who doesn´t have a lot of life or spirit about him. Any time their paths have ever crossed, he´s been unable to look Toshi in the eye, and always shuffled off towards the shadows. Today, however, he´s behaving a little out of character when she meets him - he seems a little more confident about himself, in generally good form...he even stretches himself by actually speaking to Toshi. The day´s strange start takes a lousy turn : on leaving school, Toshi discovers her bike and her mobile phone have both been stolen. When she gets home, a schoolfriend calls on the landline - who mentions that Toshi´s mobile has just been answered by a young, weird-sounding guy. Worm, of course, is the obvious suspect...
Toshi´s barely put the phone down, when her mother arrives home in a panic - Worm´s mother has been found murdered. It seems she was killed in the family apartment, roughly around the time Toshi met Worm that morning. Like Toshi, the police view Worm as the prime suspect...but, for some reason, Toshi says nothing to them about meeting Worm, hearing the noises in his apartment or about losing her bike and phone. However, it doesn´t take her three closest friends long in finding out - Worm, with his teenage hormones playing up, has spoken to each of then on Toshi´s mobile before the day was finished. (Worm´s teenage hormones have got him into trouble before). Toshi´s three friends are Terauchi , Yuzan and Kirarin - it´s a pretty tight-knit group, with only Kirarin having friends outside of this circle. Each one views themselves very differently to how their friends view them...the complications in their lives and the belief that their friends wouldn´t fully understand them contributes to the sense of isolation each one feels. It´s an element that´s particularly emphasized, as each character - Toshi, Yuzan, Kirarin, Terauchi and Worm - tells part of the story, in their own words, as it happens to them. Naturally, each has a slightly different take on things....and sometimes these versions do conflict slightly. For me, the conflict between the private thoughts and public faces added a great deal to the book. Very highly recommended - for me, this was better than both "Out" and "Grotesque".¤ 5) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. This is a very, very japanese girl talk and japanese world happening: japanese youth has a very difficult time between school and real life. This causes endless soul searching and distress for girls - on one side they try to conform to japanese society expectations and on the other hand they relate to occidental desires, female autonomy and so on. The book tires after the first 50 pages and the final is obvious. It´s worth reading as a sociology light treatise.¤ 6) Hardcover Book Real World by Knopf. 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. ¤Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Dec-2008, 03072675719780307267573, 710-910-520-820-771-961-8 
Real World, Book, Image © Knopf
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