Visceral is a word that sometimes feels overused in book reviews, but this is one book that definitely merits the description. It’s not unlike Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan in the sense that it is very hard to read at times, but beautifully written.

Our narrator is a teenage boy who strikes up a close friendship with Kojima, a girl in his class. Initially they bond over their shared experience of being relentlessly bullied and physically brutalised by a mob of classmates (purportedly because he has a lazy eye and because she is poor). Their friendship deepens as they write to each other and spend more time in each other’s company.

The book explores philosophical themes such the meaning of life, empathy, power and self-empowerment through the relationships in the book. Some of the more philosophical discussions I could give or take (I found Momose’s monologue a little overblown and not that credible). Having said that, the writing and imagery used by Kawakami, and the way in which the scene at the climax of the book was executed, was simply masterful.

I found it an engrossing and very uncomfortable read. Not a light one - there are disturbing violent scenes in it. 4/5⭐️

**Heaven will be published on 10 June 2021. I read an advance digital copy of this book courtesy of the publishers @panmacmillan @picadorbooks via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.**

TW: Bullying, violence

This was a very different read from her other novel Breasts and eggs. It is a short book, around 170 pages, and I found myself binge reading it despite the theme.

The story is set in the early 90s and the bullying described in this book is quite descriptive and violent, it was very uncomfortable to read. It gave me déjà vu, as I was bullied in school around the same years where this novel takes place, and it was excruciating having to deal with that for years until I stood up to them. The bullying I received then was quite light compared to what is described in this book. It was making my blood boil.

The book tries to explore why a group of students decide to bully a couple of students. However, I think it falls a bit as that is quite superficial, and it goes around in circles kind of validating that the bullying was ok rather than exploring why it wasn’t. One of the main characters was challenging this discussion on why it had to happen but never really had depth, so I was disappointed that this wasn’t explored further. Bullying is not ok in any circumstance, not 30 years ago and not now.

Nevertheless, I am glad that this author is exploring certain themes in her books, challenging society.

I love Japanese literature and I'm grateful for the opportunity to read this book. Despite the unpleasant situations described in this book I really enjoyed it, especially the philosophical aspects around guilt and good/evil. I'll be sure to pick up further books by the author. Many thanks for the ARC!

Se Seni e Uova è il libro cult di Mieko Kawakami, Heaven è sicuramente il suo capolavoro finora. In breve la trama ci racconta di questo ragazzino delle media, di cui non sappiamo il nome, affetto da strabismo e di una ragazzina, Kojima, sua coetanea che decide di essere sporca (scopriremo poi perché) che vengono bullizzati ogni giorno dai compagni di classe. I temi trattati in questo libro sono tanti, tutti interessanti, tutti profondi e anche difficili da digerire. Il bullismo, la violenza fisica, l'amicizia e i suoi vari livelli e stadi, il rapporto con Dio, con la famiglia, con il mondo, il senso di non appartenenza, il suicidio, la solitudine, c'è un solo bullo? O bullo è anche chi guarda e tace? il potere, le dinamiche tra il forte e il debole e le sfaccettature del potere che compongono l'identità di ognuno di noi. Il libro alterna momenti davvero violenti a momenti fisicamente più dolci ma emotivamente destabilizzanti. La scrittura è forte, bella, sporca (vari sono i liquidi che vedremo fluire dal corpo di questi ragazzini) ma anche eterea che in un primo momento può sembrare dissonante con la narrazione ma che in realtà, vedremo, funziona perfettamente con le violenze descritte con minuzia. Se di Seni e Uova mi era piaciuto tantissimo l'incipit (a mio parere uno dei più belli degli ultimi anni) di Heaven mi è piaciuto da morire il finale: bello e struggente e completamente l'opposto di quello che mi sarei aspettato. Non c'è un solo difetto in questo libro. Metterlo tra i più belli dell'anno significherebbe minimizzarne il contenuto e la valenza, per me è uno dei libri più belli di sempre e consiglio a chiunque, anche ai più piccoli (magari più ai liceali) di leggerlo e anche più di una volta.

Only after reading this book, I’ve realized that I’ve been waiting for it such a long time. This is my book. I rarely come across books that are able to touch my soul and make me feel the full spectrum of emotions whilst reading it. This book has everything, despite being tagged as a “teenager” book, due to main characters being only 14 years old. Don’t get me wrong, there is a fair amount of violence here and I DID NOT enjoy it, but philosophical part, the amount of “real life” in this book made me fall for it.

It’s a story about 14 years old boy who is tortured at his school by other children, simply because he’s different, he has a lazy eye. He starts to receive notes from the stranger and eventually makes a friend, who is also bullied at school, they share something more than just friendship. They both suffer from more than just bullying. They exchange letters, there is so much that these letters do to both of them.

Book about bullying, it’s nothing new these days. But this story is different. It touches so many philosophical aspects from victims and tormentors. The main point that I’ve taken away from this book for myself is... Is there really a sense to everything that is happening around us? Do things really matter? Does the person who hurts you, really considers your pain? Or they just do bad things, simply because they want to, without any purpose?

Another important aspect of this book is finding peace within yourself. In this case it was the lazy eye problem. Was the boy bullied just because of his look or there was more to it? How did it made boy feel about himself...?

This book isn’t for everyone, but... I would highly recommend on reading it! I’m sure you will end up making debates in your head about so many things in this book! Author's language is exquisite, I could not detach myself from this book, it was so addictive. I will definitely be reading it over and over again. I also believe, that different age group people will notice different things in this book, but it would touch everyone's heart.

Book review: 4.5/5

**Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC**

TW: Bullying, violence, mention of suicide, mild sexual content.

Brief summary: An uncomfortable novel which follows our narrator, a 14 year old middle school boy, who is bullied for having a lazy eye. The narrator strikes up a friendship with another fellow outcast and classmate who seems to be the only person who understands the narrator’s predicament. This novel focuses on the importance of childhood friendships and the different definitions of power.

This novel is completely different from Kawakami’s famous ‘Breasts & Eggs’ but has a very similar tone of blunt realism which I previously enjoyed. Kawakami taps into the vulnerability of every reader who encounters this book through her portrayals of bullying at school, a feeling of isolation at school and in life generally and the depiction of an unstable home/family life. I personally have experienced an element of all of these themes so I really empathised and recognised elements of myself in the narrator.

This book is, at times, very difficult to read with its graphically descriptive language of violent encounters. The reader is left sitting in nauseating anticipation waiting for the next altercation to occur. Whilst Breasts & Eggs felt like an endless marathon, I felt like Heaven was rollercoaster which I enjoyed but also wanted to get off. Whilst Breasts & Eggs dealt with mostly feminine issues of motherhood and pregnancy, Heaven felt universally accessible.

The most interesting element of the novel for me was Kawakami’s exploration of the definitions of power and how individuals express empowerment in the face of adversity. On the one hand, we have characters such as the school bullies who believe that power is expressed through brutality and violence. On the other hand, there are characters like Kojima that argue that accepting the bullying and violence she endures each day is her empowerment. The bullies bully her for the way she is but she is able to be her aesthetic self and express her connection to her absent father through her appearance and her ‘signs’. I felt like Kawakami was creating parallels between the way the characters like Kojima and the narrator endure hardship and historical figures who used policies of nonviolence and passive resistance.

Altogether, I really enjoyed this quirky novella (much more than Breasts & Eggs). I got a lot of Sayaka Murata vibes from it. It is not an easy read with its very graphic descriptions of violence and its uncomfortably realism but it also opens up avenues for reflection about how we define the self and what we perceive to be empowerment.

This is the third book by Mieko Kawakami that I've picked up and my journey with her writing has not been the smoothest. I wasn't fully enraptured by Ms Ice Sandwich and I didn't make much progress with Breasts and Eggs (but I do plan to come back to it). Heaven, however, is in an entirely different league. I read this over an evening and a morning and it held me vice like in its grasp.

This is an intense story, it doesn't hold back in the slightest and I'm not ashamed to admit there were moments I was physically shaking while reading it. It's deeply emotional, graphically descriptive, and yet despite its darkness there are these glimmers and moments of hope that you find yourself clinging to, desperately wanting more of them. The plot follows our protagonist who is subjected to relentless and horrific bullying by his classmates as he is befriended through letters by the enigmatic Kojima, the other object of torment within the class. Kojima's holds a not necessarily strange philosophy but one that means she believes that her acceptance of the bullying means something in the greater scheme. This is juxtaposed by the philosophy of Momose, one of the classroom bullies, who believes in the inherent selfishness of people and that there is no reason other than people doing what they want. This dichotomy is explored by our protagonist as he contemplates what choices and actions he should take. Mieko Kawakami weaves all of this together, alongside aspects of tumultuous home lives, and creates an incredibly powerful piece of writing that will haunt you after finishing it.

this is a coming of age story that i utterly enjoyed!
the two characters are both victims of relentless bullying and they find solace within eachother which starts by them exchanging notes. They slowly start to build up a bond which finally makes them have someone to support. This book is hard hitting especially when the bullying is described in detail

2,5 rounded up

What a funny little book. Those familiar with Kawakami's writing will recognise similar themes as found in Ms Ice Sandwich - both are coming of age novels featuring misfits, friendship, absent or distant parents - although this is certainly darker.

Our protagonist is relentlessly bullied by his classmates due to his lazy eye. He befriends a female classmate (another misfit, bullied because she supposedly smells bad) after she begins writing letters to him. These letters are the only real joy in his life, and we also get a glimpse into the troubles he is experiencing at home.

Whilst I largely enjoyed this, albeit slightly less than Ms Ice Sandwich I find myself with little to say about it a few weeks after putting it aside.

3 ½ stars

A few weeks ago I read Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed Breasts and Eggs and suffice to say that I was not a fan. While Heaven was clearly written by the same author of Breasts and Eggs (both novels implement similar imagery and even use the same metaphor comparing the legs of a young girl to poles) I was able to appreciate it a lot more. In spite of its brevity Heaven is by no means an easy-going story, in fact, it often verges on being Misery Porn™: large chunks of the narrative depict in minute detail the bullying our fourteen-year-old protagonist is subjected to. The novel raises some interesting questions about bullying, nonconformity. Why do some become perpetrators while others are victims? Should our main character respond to the deluge of abuse he receives from his classmates? Why do the other boys in the class torment him? Is it because of his appearance (he has a lazy eye)? While quite a few of the discussions between young teens did not really all that convincing (they expressed themselves in a way that seemed far older/more experience) I still found myself engaged in the narrative. There are a lot of scenes that verge on being gratuitous: we get painfully detailed descriptions of our MC being beaten, humiliated, and harassed. His friendship with Kojima, a classmate who is bullied by the female students, provided some welcome respite from the sections relating the bullying. The two bond quickly, and in spite of their attempts not to discuss school and the way they are treated by other students, they do eventually confined in one another. Kojima's view of the whole bullying thing while by no means healthy certainly allows her to make 'sense' of her circumstances.
As with Breasts and Eggs, we have characters giving seemingly endless monologues that last pages at the time. While I did not mind learning more about Kojima, her home life, and her peculiar philosophy, I did not care one bit about Momose's spiel towards the end of the novel. The narrative seemed intent on making him seem mysterious and mature but I thought him shallow. He did not really come across as a credible fourteen-year-old, more like a parody of the worldly teen who already speaks so many truths about the world (puh-lease). Our main character does a lot of navel-gazing but unlike in Breasts and Eggs, here it seemed fitting. He is young and going through a lot so it seemed natural for him to try and make sense of what was happening to him.
The ending was slightly disappointing and I probably would have given this a higher rating if I hadn't been for that predictable 'show-down'. I would not necessarily recommend this to those who have a low threshold for narratives depicting bullying (extensively and graphicly). Thanks to a manga series by Keiko Suenobu called Life which kind of traumatized me when I first read it around the age of 12. While Heaven was by no means a breezy or perfectly executed read I did find it to be poignant and for the most part realistic. If anything it has elevated Kawakami in my eyes.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly thank you to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for the advance copy of #heaven by @kawakami_mieko

MINOR SPOILER ALERTS

I received this book today and read it all today. I absolutely loved #breastsandeggs so hoped for another beautifully written storu by the hugely talented #miekokawakami.

I was not disappointed, this book is short in comparison to breasts and eggs but you wouldn't think it given the detail and rich narrative that runs throughout. The focus on teenage young people and bullying is something, that I too suffered with at a similar age. I can honestly I have never read anything that is as psychological close to the emotions and responses. The bullying scenes are horrific and are upsetting, however the cognitive dissonance applied by the characters in different ways is just poetic and makes you think in so many ways. I wish it lasted longer as reading anything from Kawakami feels like opening a birthday present on each page but she does fit so much into a shorter novel. I loved it and cannot wait to read it in hard copy when it is out on 10th June 2021, preorder now from your favourite book stockiest!

#honnomushi100 #reading #japanesefiction #translatedfiction #translatedjapaneseliterature #booksfromjapan #booklover #bookstagram #translatedgems #beautifulwriting #heavenmeiko