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Real World

In a suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls drift through a hot smoggy August and tedious summer school classes. There's dependable Toshi; brainy Terauchi; Yuzan, grief-stricken and confused; and Kirarin, whose late nights and reckless behaviour remain a secret from those around her.

Then Toshi's next-door neighbour is found brutally murdered and the girls suspect Worm, the neighbour's son and a high school misfit. But when he disappears (taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him) the four girls become irresistibly drawn into a treacherous vortex of brutality and seduction which rises from within themselves as well as the world around them.

Kirino uses her considerable narrative gifts to evoke the tedium, pressure and angst her teenage characters suffer

Publishers Weekly

About Natsuo Kirino

Natsuo Kirino, born in 1951, quickly established a reputation in Japan as one of a rare breed of crime writer whose work goes well beyond the conventional crime novel. This fact has been demonstrated by her winning not only Japan's top mystery award, for Out, but two of its major literary awards, the Naoki Prize and the Tanizaki Prize. Her novels available in English are Out, Grotesque, Real World, In, The Goddess Chronicle and Swallows.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • ISBN: 9780099523192
  • Length: 224 pages
  • Dimensions: 190mm x 16mm x 136mm
  • Weight: 197g
  • Price: £9.99
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