Shizuko's Daughter Book Review

When I opened Shizuko’s Daughter, by Kyoko Mori, a young adult novel about a girl coping with her mother’s suicide, I expected it to be dark. And it was certainly dark, but also tender, loving, and even funny once in a while, and nothing like I expected.

The structure is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, more of a collection of interconnected short stories than a novel. It definitely took me a couple of pages to figure out what was going on, but once I got it, I fell in love. The structure gives a deep burst of the characters without worrying as much about continuity and setting. The format allowed Mori to explore a wide range of dates, topics, and perspectives in less than two hundred pages.

Speaking of perspectives, the point of view changes are done with such grace and inner knowledge of all the characters. Though Yuki is the clear focus of the story, adding in other characters’ thoughts of her strengthens her character in a way she alone couldn’t have done.

In horror writing, they speak of “keeping the door closed”; e.g., leaving enough of the story in the dark so that the reader’s imagination has to fill in the gaps. Mori does this here with Shizuko’s suicide. The reader never quite learns why Shizuko commits suicide--there are certainly clues, but nothing explicit. All the same, a nagging enters the reader as they start to imagine what might have led her to that point. It makes the story not only entertaining but also interactive in a way.

“...Hanae couldn’t stay in the attic for more than five minutes without thinking of the eight long years that she herself had spent seeing Hideki [her former affair, now husband] only in secret. … Some mornings, though, while she cleaned the rest of the house so that it was spotless, Hanae felt suffocated by the thought of the dust in the attic above her.”

Recommended for anyone who’s always wanted all sides of the story instead of just the one.

--Grace Nask