BOOK REVIEWS

|HALF WORLD|

HIROMI GOTO

In Half World, Goto portrays the protagonist, a young girl named Melani Tamaki, as an outsider and the unpopular and impoverished only child of a loving but neglectful mother. Melani is just barely coping with school and life. When she returns home one day to discover that her mother is missing, lured back to Half World by a vile creature who calls himself Mr. Glueskin, everything changes. Soon Melani embarks on an epic and darkly fantastical journey to save her mother. What she does not realize, however, is that the state of the universe is at stake.

Half World is a haunting combination of a coming-of-age novel and a spiritual quest, a mad funhouse of horrors and a tale of redemption and love. It is wonderfully odd and quite unforgettable.