And I...How could I possibly atone?
How could I be healed, how could I be saved?
Miu...Answer me, Miu!
(Page 131)
Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime is about Konoha Inoue - The bestselling author Miu Inoue, who broke down withing a year after his success - and Tohko Amano - a girl who lives by eating books rather than food - who together make up the book club at their school, and the girl Chia Takeda's said love for a boy called Shuji Kataoka. One day Chia comes to the book club for help with her love and Tohko tell the younger girl that Konoha can write a love letter for the boy. In return Chia is supposed to write a report on the love if it turns out well.
But as Konoha has to keep writing letters for Chia to give to her beloved Shuji, he starts wondering about the boy from the archery club. And as he investigates, it appears that there's no Shuji in the archery club. There's not even on in the school! Now Konoha and Tohko are stuck in a mystery that has to do with something that happened at the school ten years ago...
Konoha is a second year who two years ago wrote a book for a competition. It was his first novel and it won and it was released under the pseudonym Miu Inoue. But it became a mess for Konoha, and he was burned out while his family had to suffer. Besides that he promised to never write. But as he started high school he met the upperclassman Tohko Amano who forced him into the book club after he saw her eat a page out of the book.
God, she's really eating it...That never gets any less surreal.
R-r-rip, crincle, flupp.
Nom-nom-nom - gulp.
(Page 8)
Konoha has been in love with a girl named Miu, but due to circumstances it's painful for him to remember her and thanks to the daily life he gets through the book club he thinks less and less of Miu. But the mystery brings back old painful memories for our main character.
The book is written in Konoha's point of view, with some letters and quotes of letters. The events are mostly chronological, with some flashbacks. The books is very well written, at least in the English translation by Karen McGillicuddy. The illustrations by Miho Takeoka are very pretty and fits the story. I'm a little sad they did so much editing to the cover art, but at least the main subject - Tohko - is still there.
While I was reading the end of chapter 5 a song came up on the web radio I listen to a lot. It was Ai Otsuka's Cherish. I just wanted to mention it, because I love the song and I felt it was very fitting at the moment.
With that side note out of the way... Finally we get to what I think. This books gets 5.5 out of 6 for enjoyment. It was a page turner and I didn't want to put it down. I was always itching to read more. I'm overjoyed I have the second book to read too - Birthdays can be really handy at times! - and will soon begin reading that one soon
The reason it doesn't get a full score is because that in chapter 6 I did get a hard time continuing. Suddenly the flow was slower, building up to something new and I didn't expect that. Unexpected things are good, but in this case the pace kind of got me lost and I had to take a break before being able to finish the book. The ending of the book, however, was good. It was just that unexpected slow tempo building up to a new turn of events that lowered the score slightly.
