From the blog (https://www.rtfbpod.com/?s=b&h=18):

I suppose this is something that everyone does from time to time (but if you've never done so, you're missing out, friend) - namely, going into a book shop with or without a particular book in mind. Letting your eyes rove over the covers of the offerings in the different sections as you slowly walk through the aisles. Picking one (or two or three) up on a whim. Giving them a cursory review and then deciding to take a chance on them. Sure, just like a blind date, this can often go wrong (I'm looking at you, Finding Ultra), but when it goes right, it's really a treat.

This book was a Book Store Blind Date that went right for me (actually, if I'm remembering correctly, I got it from an online store... but you can still browse virtually, right? Book Store Tinder, I guess). A quick review of the blurbs did their trick:

"Japanese best seller?" I said.

"Blend of folklore? A hybrid of Virgin Suicides and Windup Bird Chronicles?" I said

"I've impulse bought for less than that" I said.

At home, unwrapping the book and diving in to reading, it didn't take long before I was feeling that spark (to take the dating analogy a bit too far).

The central conceit of the book - the heart, if you will - is this: a middle schooler, Kokoro ('Heart', your Google Translate will tell you), has been unable to go to class due to a mysterious illness; a stomach trouble that comes over her each morning, much to her mother's dismay. After a day of rest at home, she feels better - like she could really finally go to school tomorrow. . . until tomorrow comes with the promise of having to be in the presence of her onetime friend, her current rival, and even her teacher (who seems to want to help her feel comfortable at school while being completely blind to what might help) and the illness is back in force (along with the feeling of guilt of having let her mother down yet again).

Thus trapped indoors, amidst a series of days laying on the couch, watching TV, she finds that the mirror in her room is softly glowing. In typical fairy tale fashion, when she touches the shining glass, she is transported (and those with a keen memory for the book's title will have guessed) to a lonely castle. Therein she meets a young girl (she's pretty sure), in a nice dress and a wolf mask, calling herself the Wolf Queen, and later is also introduced to 6 other children of (slightly) varying ages. The Wolf Queen tells them all that there is a secret room hidden in this already hidden castle, and if they can find the key to the room and step inside within the next year, they will get a single wish granted. But! Only one of them can make the wish, and once they do, they'll all forget the castle and each other.

So, here is where the book takes a turn I did not expect given this setup -- the kids just, I don't know, kind of shrug? And then just hang out? Thinking back on it, this is probably the thing that ended up hooking me -- namely, how authentic the kids seemed.

These are kids, who seem to casually come and go from the hidden castle whenever they feel like it, we find out eventually are also unable to go to school just like Kokoro. They are too sick they tell one another. Their parents don't force them to go because they think school is a waste of time. They've been sent away to a private school for football. They are having too much fun spending time with their boyfriend. They just aren't that interested.

Even from the earliest lines where Kokoro is describing the feeling, the trap, the trick that keeps her in paralyzed thrall to TV shows and passing people's voices outside of her window rang 100% true to me. I know that feeling so well that it's, frankly, disheartening. I can't count the number of times I've been the one sitting on the floor, playing some video game way past when I should've gone to bed (most recently, Elden Ring, of course); the one laying on the couch reminding myself with every thought that I should get up and get some project done before the early morning meeting when we are supposed to be reviewing progress on said project; knowing that the homework isn't finished and instead of doing anything at all, just going to sleep, upset with myself. "Procrastination" in the best case, I suppose ... "Executive disorder" in the worst.

So, here is a group of kids afflicted with the same tendency to inaction, who have just been told they can be given anything their heart wants, and they spend the next year. . . kind of just fucking around.

These, gentle reader, are my people.

Most of the story during that year focuses on Kokoro getting to know her follow castle crashers. She is very polite, very socially aware, very conscious of how she seems to the older girls, the boys playing video games, considering the casualness of her words, the implications of the Christmas gifts she decides to bring the others -- this section seemed very focused on the subtleties of Japanese social interactions. Very slowly, she becomes comfortable enough with the others to ask them about their situations, the places they live, whether their parents are disappointed with them too. With every step towards the others, she feels more sure she could never even use this promised wish; how could she ever stand to forget all these people who have become her friends? Maybe, she thinks, if we all band together, we could even stand to go back to school. If we all promise each other to go back on the same day, we can just go to the nurse if it becomes too much; we can be each others' safety net.

So, here's the other thing I will put out there: the way the story, the setting, the characters very slowly start to reveal themselves (and maybe with me having read too many Junji Ito comics, too many Stephen King stories about kids this age ... ) at a certain point, I had a very, very bad feeling about what was going to happen to the group as their year in the castle began to draw to a close.

To say much more than that would, I think, ruin the fun... though maybe, I'll just note that I've seen some reviewers compare this book to IT (speaking of Mr King), but the only parallel I see there is the 'coming together with a new group of friends in an extraordinary/supernatural situation' - none of the dark parts go quite THAT dark, though this isn't a Disney fairy tale either. I'll also say, at the end, while some things I had started to suspect were proven out, there were still some surprises, some clues that I had completely missed.

I think this book would be most appreciated by a YA audience, specifically someone just around 13, maybe going to a new school and dealing with having to make new friends and deal with mean girls and other bullies for the first time. Or, in my case, even by an almost 40 year old man, who can remember dealing with jerks at school and who can relate to the cumulative pressure of continued inactivity (and who would probably use their one wish to get rid of that particular stumbling block for themselves for good).