This one snuck up on me. Fuyuko’s malaise is embodied in the text and it takes a while to understand what the verisimilitude is there for. Yet the entire time there’s good flow, so there’s a dream-like quality that occurs that really out me into a sort of zombie or mesmeric state as I progressed through what seemed like pretty airy prose. It’s pretty bold. I almost put it down a few times because Fuyuko is a really static protagonist and that’s really tough to engage with. There’s maybe four characters and Fuyuko interacts with, at maximum, one person at a time. It all feels a bit aimless. Until it isn’t.

The truth is i identified a lot with her. I’m a homebody too. I don’t have physical friends around. I lead a pretty quiet existence. And I like it that way, most of the time. So I kept reading. When and if the formatting clicks for you, it’s a pretty satisfying turn. Like feeling you’ve been dealt a crappy hand and then the River comes and you’re working with more than you thought.

What emerges is a pretty complex, really quietly sweet novel about taking chances and the reality of pain as a requirement as far as needed context in a lived life. Because pain is supplied predominantly from others, not being hurt—not even realizing you are hurt—is a possibility that might be worse than the pain being avoided. People react to such things in a myriad of ways. Sometimes they shut down, for good reason, as a response. Other times it enlivens them and imbues them with humanity and dignity and transitions them into the complexity of a life responding to the lens of those around them; friend or foe, lover or friend.

If you manage to grok what this is doing, pushing through the absolute mundanity (especially in dialogue) I think it really does navigate to a place where it does something quite interesting with the boredom or static malaise quality it simulates as a proxy for Fuyuko. It’s romantic in how it segues from powerlessness to a small kind of empowerment that takes hold, eventually blossoming.