Half World

Half World by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki 2010
Viking/Penguin Group

Melanie Tamaki is fourteen years old, an outsider at school and struggling to make ends meet with her mother. Melanie's mother clearly loves her, but she tends to forget to run errands and can't hold down a job, and she has trouble holding down a job. One day, Melanie comes home to find that her mother is missing. She has been kidnapped by the gruesome Mr. Glueskin and taken back to the Half World. Melanie must save her mother and so she makes the frightful journey into the Half World.

Melanie is chubby, dubbed a 'slow learner' in school, and so she is bullied. I never felt connected to Melanie though. I sympathised with her being made fun of, but that was about all I felt for her. Sympathy. We don't learn much about Melanie's life, all we know is that she is poor, picked on and loves to read. I wanted to learn more about her history. I also would have liked to know where her story took place in the real world (my guess would be Canada just because that's where the author lives but I'm not sure). Melanie seemed rather immature too, maybe it's just me thinking I was oh-so-mature when I was fourteen. I also NEEDED more story about her parents and the other secondary characters Melanie runs into. I realize that Melanie didn't really have time to learn the life story of all the people she met but I wished we had gotten a better glimpse of all the characters. Perhaps a prequel is needed? Or a sequel? I would read it! I could take or leave the illustrations. They were nice, but they didn't contribute a great deal to the story. However I loved that the illustrator never drew the creatures of the Half World that were described in such vivid and stomach-churning detail (keep in my mind, I get scared easily so this was good for me). This allowed the reader to imagine the characters and I think that works better for this novel, the creatures are YOUR worst nightmares.

I did admire Melanie's soft power. Melanie is brave because she has to be, but like any teenager, she's utterly terrified of Mr. Glueskin and fears for the safety of her mom. Yet Melanie doesn't make any grand heroic gestures, she pauses and really weighs the consequences. She resists doing what she knows she needs to do. She's SCARED and that's normal and did make her a bit easier to relate to. Another favorite quote of mine that shows her power: "How much can a person bear? she thought hollowly.
The silence of the entire penthouse floor was profound. Only the steady beating of her foolish heart.
As much as she had to, Melanie thought grimly." (pg.121) In order to enter the Half World, an unpleasant task is required (and it's rather random, I wonder if the particular body part is meant to symbolize something?). The Half World is the place where mortals go after dying, it's a sort of dream world. In the Half World, mortals must relieve their greatest trauma they experienced while living (also known as the Realm of Flesh) until they are able to resolve the issue. It reminded me a bit of Purgatory. There are three worlds: the Realm of Flesh, the Half World and the Realm of Spirit (which is like Heaven in my mind). I was reminded of a recent post at The Enchanted Inkpot called Lost in Translation which talks about how symbols used in fantasy in the West can mean different things than in the East. For example, in Half World, I think crows are meant to be a good omen, but in Western culture, crows are a bad omen. I did some research and found that crows in Japan are thought to be a sign of the gods and thus are held in high regard.

Half World is a splendid book. The world building is excellent, the characters and scenes described are grotesque and yet completely enthralling. The action is fast-paced and Melanie is not the typical heroine who can do anything and has mysterious magical powers. She's mostly normal and her feelings of terror at being in the Half World and facing the dreadful Mr. Glueskin (and his glue-y tongue, yuck!) are ones that I could relate to as a teenager. While I think there is a lack of character development and back story, I'm ecstatic that I can confidently recommend a YA fantasy with a multicultural cast (or just a great fantasy read) and strong females who are not the typical 'warrior'. In fact, most of the women in this book are fierce but they would be considered fragile, their power appears almost out-of necessity, the adrenaline kicks in and then they harness this new found strength. Also, I think it's a bonus that this book has no hint of romance, instead it focuses on a strong mother-daughter bond and that is absolutely refreshing. Melanie starts out too dependent on her mother and she becomes more independent and at the same time her bond with her mother is strengthened.

This review originally ran at Reading in Color.

Read our interview with the author

Happy Birthday: Hiromi Goto

Hiromi Goto's -WWOC, She is one of the few author's that list her year of birth. Our gift to the author is a look back on what people have said about her YA debut Half World

Bernie Goedhart's review
Canadian illustrator Jillian Tamaki’s spectacular cover art first drew me to Half World. Neil Gaiman’s testimonial on the front cover prompted me to open the book and start reading.

I’m glad I did.

Author Hiromi Goto, born in Japan and now living in Burnaby, B.C., has created a story that is complex, unsettling (sometimes downright stomach-churning), thought-provoking and not an easy read. For those who stay with it, however, the results are rewarding.

Zetta Elliott
Have you ever stopped reading a book because you couldn’t bear for it to end? That was my experience reading Hiromi Goto‘s Half World. I was on the train and I was totally absorbed in the narrative—would Melanie make it across the bridge of crows? Would she find the nerve to bite off the baby’s finger to pay the toll and open the portal? This book is intense—yet it’s also funny at times, and poignant at others.

Hiromi, I am very happy Ari introduced you and your work to Color Online. On behalf of everyone at CO - Happy Birthday and Happy New Year

WWOC: Hiromi Goto

Name: Hiromi Goto.

I was born December 31, 1966 in Japan.

My website: http://hiromigoto.com and my blog is at: http://hiromigoto.com/blog

Genre: I'm rather genre fluid although my writing would fall under speculative. I write for both adult and youth audiences. My writing for youth tend to fall under fantasy, and my adult fiction falls into the mixed waters of slipstream. I also write some poetry and nonfiction.... I like to go to wherever my interests lead me rather than be locked in one specific genre.

WiP: I'm currently at work on Darkness, a companion novel to Half World, which was my latest work of fiction published with Viking USA in 2010.

Writing Credits: I've published three books for adults; Chorus of Mushrooms, The Kappa Child, and Hopeful Monsters. My novels for children/youth are The Water of Possibility, and Half World. My short stories have also be anthologized; some of them can be found in The Faery Reel and The Beastly Bride; Tales of the Animal People, as well as in journals like Ms Magazine and Nature.

How frequently do you update your site? I update my website whenever there's a note-worthy event. I try to blog regularly-- once a week, on various topics that can touch upon the writing life(s), gender, genre, writing strategies, the odd rant about a film, suggested book titles, nature outings, etc! Folks can comment on the blog posts and I try my best to respond.

Post of Note: I blogged about Bad Voice on December 6, 2010. Bad Voice is a debilitating force in almost everyone's life, and it certainly affects me as a writer. I'd love it if folks read that post and dropped me a note on their own experiences with Bad Voice.

Your YA fantasy debut, Half World has no romance in it. Were you anxious at all about how it would be received since it would seem that YA needs a little romance?

Half World, a YA crossover novel, is a fantasy narrative about a teenaged girl who is searching for her mother. Romance doesn't figure in this story, and I question why we think that if there is no romance in a fantasy narrative, that something is missing. Why must it be there in the first place? Now, I understand that there are conventions of a genre, and genre expectations-- but I approach my own writing projects as both a writer and a reader. When I'm reading, I'm hoping for a story to take me to an unexpected place. I don't want to go to the same places over and over again. So, I guess I'm trying to appeal to the readers who like to go off the beaten track. I wasn't anxious that excluding romance in Half World would have a profoundly negative impact upon reception. I consider writing to be a political act as well as a creative one, and it's important to me that content, in even subtle and small ways, disrupt and/or question the normative. Depictions of (mostly heterosexual) romantic love completely colonize popular culture narratives. Isn't there enough already? I don't want any chicken mcnuggets!

How did you come up with the idea of the Half World, the realm of Flesh and the Realm of Spirit? Three very different and creative worlds?

The concept of the Three Realms was developed out of various world mythologies and religious beliefs of our life on earth, and the afterlife. I was also influenced by Bosch's famous triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, as well as Frida Kahlo's numerous self-portraits. I was also trying to puzzle out the cyclical nature of suffering in our lives. The broader questions of existance-- why do humans continue to cause suffering? Why can't we stop killing? Something is wrong, here.... What is it? A lot of my stories come out of posing questions.

Top Five Reads for 2011:

Pulse, by Lydia Kwa, Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing by Betsy Warland, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugresic, Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita, Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead.

100 words or less how would you describe your work?

I'd describe my writing as edgy, vivid, feminist, racialized, queer-positive. Half World is fantasy bordering sometimes upon the horrific, but my writing can also be cheeky and humorous. Particularly my novels for adults. If writers were to be compared to animals, to herbivores and carnivores, than I'm an omnivore. I'm a crow of a writer. Or a raccoon....

100 words or less please share your thoughts on being a woman writer of color.

I'm a woman of colour writing out of North America. I'm an immigrant living on colonized land. This awareness effects, absolutely, how I write, because I'm not writing out of a historical vacuum. In literary historical terms, the writings of women of colour and indigenous women has not been widely published in North America for so very long. I'm talking about air time. It's been dominated by white male writers, and when I look at the winners of major literary prizes, it still veers toward them. This tells me something about long-term systemic racism and sexism. I believe that it's still vital and necessary, for the good of all, that diverse and politicized women of colour and indigenous women writers continue to roar, take up space, and challenge the normative. That readers need, and are hungry for, diverse stories. Sometimes our bodies and minds are starving for other stories, but we do not know it, because we are full-up on Wonderbread.

Thank you so much for the interview Hiromi! I for one, am tired of Wonderbread and mcNuggets as well. I really admire the fact that Half World focuses on a mother-daughter relationship instead of a romance. I also love that it's helping to fill in the huge gap of fantasy about people of color.