Half World

When we first meet Melanie Tamaki, the shy and neglected protagonist of Hiromi Goto's Half World, she is running with all her might, as she is being chased down the street by a pack of bullies who are slinging pebbles and harsh insults at her back. The opening scenes introduce us to a downtrodden protagonist who seems unlikely to become her own hero. However, deftly weaving together elements of horror, fantasy, and Chinese and Japanese spirituality, Hiromi Goto turns the hero's quest on its ear, providing us with a believable heroine and a thrilling, fantastical coming of age story.

Melanie is a teenager who has been left to scrape together small bits of comfort while her ailing, disinterested mother spends most of her days wasting away in a daze. The Half World of the title refers to the otherworldly, purgatory setting where Melanie must find her mother, who has disappeared suddenly. But Melanie has already been living in a half world, of sorts; it is a world frequently occupied by impoverished and misunderstood children who must carve out a safe space for themselves when neither home life nor their school provide it. Melanie's comfort is found with crows circling about the dock side of her town, and with the surly but compassionate neighborhood grocer, Ms. Wei, an older woman who has lost her partner of many years, Nora Stein, and now resides in a world of whispered stories and piles of books.

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