

The girls treat the murder and manhunt like a celebrity sighting, they cheer him on and help him with loans of bikes and cell phones. By inter-changing cell phones the girls have come in contact with the juvenile killer who is on the run, and it soon becomes clear that he is in need of some psychiatric help. It is set against the backdrop of the murder of Toshi’s neighbour by her seventeen year old son. The story describes the lives of four teenage girls, Toshi, Terauchi, Yuzan and Kirarin. Real World by Natsuo Kirino was originally published in 2003 then translated into English in 2008. Hopefully, the next book I read from this author will be better. I felt like the characters were not fleshed out much. I wanted him to die instead of her, in the taxicab accident. I didn't like how the girl interacted with him when she accompanied him to the Mount Asama area.

It made me uncomfortable to read how the character of Worm acted and talked. His entrance into their lives has a devastating effect, but not as bad as I imagined it could have been. From her cell phone, he gets the name of her and her three best friends, and calls all of them. The creepy little psychopath steals Toshi's bike, locked up at the station, and her cell phone, which she accidentally left in her bike basket. She finds out later that he had just murdered his mother with a baseball bat. When she heads out to the train station for school, on her bicycle, the nextdoor boy, usually a wormy little creep (hence his nickname Worm), smiles at her and seems really upbeat. One summer morning before she heads out to her summer "cram school," she hears the sound of breaking glass next door. Toshi Is a teenage girl, living in a suburb of Tokyo.
