Real World by Natsuo Kirino - 9780307267573 - Compare Prices on New & Used Textbooks, Cheap Textbooks

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		Real World by Natsuo Kirino, Philip Gabriel (Translator) ISBN-10: 9780307267573 ISBN-10: 0-307-26757-1 ISBN-13: 9780307267573 ISBN-13: 978-0-307-26757-3 Hardcover 2008-07-15 Knopf Find Lowest Price
Editorials

Product Description 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.
Reviews

Girl bitching 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.
Interesting After i got finished with this book i was left feeling HUH?! Although this book took me to japan i was able to see everything that was taken place like i was there myself. I really didn't think the story was that great (i was waiting for some big twist,but i didn't get it) and i only sympathized with was the barbie girl (not even the mother that was killed). But after reading other reviews i also saw what other reviewers saw in the book about the issues and I saw the book in a different light. I related better I guess. This was my first book by this author and I'm going to try another novel of hers.
A compelling story, an exposé of teenage culture in Japan, and an insightful glimpse into Japanese culture in general "Feminist noir" is the term most often used to describe Japanese author Natsuo Kirino's dark and violent yet surprisingly insightful novels. Kirino first burst onto the English-language scene with OUT, a compelling work of fiction about a group of women who conspire to murder one of their husbands and then cover it up. GROTESQUE, his second novel to be published in English, focused on two murders of prostitutes, as well as on the slain women's history and past relationships. Although both are sometimes startlingly graphic in their portrayal of violence, and are compelling stories, reducing these books to their murder plots would mean only scratching the surface of what they're actually about. Kirino's third novel to be published in the U.S., REAL WORLD, is no exception. Although the plot could probably be summarized in a sentence or two, and although that plot could sound like the basis for a really bad teenage thriller movie, his deft and perceptive social observation and commentary lift the book from the world of the grotesque into the realm of ideas. REAL WORLD, like its predecessors, begins with a murder. This time, it's the murder of a mother by her teenaged son, known as Worm. Worm, like all the young characters in the book, is privileged, going to a good school and attending "cram school" during the summer to ensure that he doesn't fall behind in attempts to make it into the best university. The murder is overheard by Worm's neighbor, Toshi, a responsible girl and the center of her small group of friends. In his escape, Worm steals Toshi's bicycle as well as her cell phone, subsequently using its address book to connect with Toshi's friends: Yuzan, a closet lesbian struggling to define her identity; Terauchi, a thoughtful girl and a good student who Worm enlists to write his "manifesto"; and Kirarin, a beautiful young lady whose night life as a reckless wild child is a secret even from her friends. In turn, each girl --- as well as Worm himself --- reveals hidden motivations, societal and familial pressures, and personal histories that lead each to make startling, and sometimes tragic, decisions. The novel's title hints at one of its major themes --- the notion of authenticity, of creating an individual, meaningful self when one's society is focused above all on conformity as well as on scholastic and financial success. Once word of the murder gets out, Worm becomes an underground online hero, not because he killed his mother per se, but because this successful student from a good home found a way to escape from the life that had seemed pre-ordained for him. Likewise, each of Worm's contacts from Toshi's phone is striving --- with various degrees of success --- to escape from the expected, often by putting up boundaries or masks, by creating an equally inauthentic "weapon," as Terauchi reflects: "My weapon is that I can hide my feelings and say something stupid to cover them up. Toshi's weapon is her made-up name, Ninna Hori, for Kirarin, it's always pretending to be cheerful. Yuzan's the only one who painfully exposes herself to the world." The elusive nature of the "real," the authentic, is just one of the complicated ideas that gives this novel its real backbone, its philosophical and emotional heft. Sure, it's a compelling story that ends with a tragic convergence of events, but it's also an exploration of four distinct female "types," an exposé of teenage culture in Japan and an insightful glimpse into Japanese culture in general. This combination of elements will both fascinate and resonate with Western readers, who will certainly be clamoring to have access to even more of Natsuo Kirino's electrifying, intelligent noir novels. --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Another great novel by Natsuo Kirino I never know really what to expect when I pick up Natsuo Kirino's books. In Out, I thought I had it, but the book changed completely. In Grotesque, the one person I sympathized with ended up being the worse out of all of bunch. So when I picked up Real World, I was determined to just let the story take me and boy did it take me. It all starts with the sound of glass breaking. Toshi hears this, but her friends assure her that it was probably nothing and that she shouldn't worry about it. When she leaves to head over to her cram school she sees Worm, the boy from next door where the sound of glass breaking came from. She feels like something is wrong, but Worm tells her that she is probably imagining the sound. She wasn't. Turns out that Worm killed his mother with a baseball bat and is now on the run. He also swipes Toshi's cell phone and bike while she's in school. With Toshi's cell phone in his hand, Worm calls up her friends, Terauchi, Yuzan, and Kirarin. Each girl gets sucked into this mess and after this experience; the four friends will never be the same. When I read the blurb about Real World, I thought that the four friends would try to solve the murder, but like I mentioned before this is Natsuo Kirino and you should always expect the unexpected. Instead of trying to solve the crime, Yuzan and Kirarin decide to help him, Toshi calls him to find out why he did this and to remind him that the police are still after him, and Terauchi wonders why he was lazy enough to kill his mother. Lazy is her word not mine. The narrator changes with each chapter helping us get into the minds of Worm, Toshi, Terauchi, Yuzan, and Kirarin. Each of them hiding who they really are and that is what surprised me the most with this novel. Yes there is a murder and yes they help Worm, but to me the story showed how you can't judge a book, or in this case a person, by their cover. Yuzan and Kirarin's real personalities were pretty cliché, the hidden lesbian and the hidden slut, but Terauchi was the one that really got to me. She's smart and always on her A-game, but inside it's like a completely different person, someone philosophical and complex, but distant and cold at the same time. And the ending. The ending completely caught me off guard and left me sympathizing with everyone, even though I didn't like some of the characters. If you are a fan of Japanese fiction, Natsuo Kirino, or just want to read a great novel, pick this up. It's a keeper! 5/5
"Real World" is Modern-Day Japan "Real World" is not just a book about Japan and young Japanese people, it is, in fact a written semi-fictional recording of modern-day Japan as it really has become these days. I should know, I live in Tokyo. I have lived here over 15 years and I have seen it all change so very much. And these days young Japanese are just like Worm and Toshi in so many ways, and THAT is what make this so book so significant and horrifying! Also Kirino is right on the mark with her portrayals of Japanese brainwashed college students, teachers, parents and the overkill 'Authority Rules' group mind that is destroying young individual students before they can even graduate. Get this book and read it. You may not believe some of it, but, believe me, its all too true. Five stars.

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