Roger Ferlo

Heaven is a story about a teenage boy going through extreme bullying by his classmates. We never learn his name, but the bullies have nicknamed him “eyes” since he has a lazy eye. However, the book is about so much more than bullying. It is about love and hate, laughter and crying, abuse and survival, flaws and beauty, friendship and enemies, and Heaven and hell.
 
Our narrator receives a note asking to be friends with the writer. With this, he scans the room to see if his bullies will show more give themselves away as the note owner. As he continues receiving notes and one day receives one asking to meet him outside of school, he spends days before figuring out what he should do. Finally, he deciedes to just go. If it is his bullies, they will do what they want to him whether he shows up or not; they might as well get it over with. When he shows up at “whale park,” he sees Kojima waiting at the bench, the other girl that gets bullied for being dirty. After that meeting, they become secret friends, passing notes to each other every day and occasionally meeting.
 
At first, they only talk about random things, having an unspoken rule to never bring up the bullying they witness each other going through. But then, at one meeting, Kojima begins to explain why they’re bullied and cannot give up. Her being dirty made her who she is, and his eyes make him who he is; their persistent weakness in school is their strength that keeps them showing up every day regardless. She explains that no one else understands them, which is why they are bullied.
 
One day Kojima brings our narrator to a museum to see Heaven. She explains she named this painting heaven because the two subjects in the painting have gone through the worst and are now at peace in Heaven. Kojima says the only way to get to Heaven is through struggling and trauma. The way the author uses this to carry her story, and when I realized that she did, brought me to more tears. The entirety of this book is pain, and then at the end, the worst happens, and then it ends in complete 20/20 beauty.
 
This is not just a story about being bullied. This is a story about surviving and how fragile that survival can be. There is a part in the book where Momose, a boy who watches our narrator get bullied, tears apart the only reasoning he was holding onto to survive the bullying. Point by point, he throws away every bit of hope and pride that the protagonist could possibly hold on to. Then, finally, we're brought along as he realizes nothing he believed was real; he discovers that his eyes are not the reason he is being bullied; it is simply because. Because someone felt like it, and he was there. That is it. There was no war he was fighting for others; he was not struggling for a purpose; he simply was struggling because someone wanted to make someone suffer that first day.
 
Being someone who has gone through bullying, this book touched the deepest corners of my soul. It caressed the scars and validated the tears that this book made me realize were still there. Simply witnessing how our narrator reacted to specific triggers or how he thought was enough to show how much he has gone through. On the first page, when he reacts to the note, you immediately get a glimpse of the state of his soul.
 
Heaven is the perfect book to glimpse someone's life relentlessly bullied because of how grounded in reality it was. Kojima and our narrator did not run away and never truly stood up to the bullies. What happened in this book is what happens every day to countless kids in school. There was nowhere Mieko Kawakami sugarcoated their experiences. Even when you think, finally they're going to do something, or for sure someone is going to say something, nothing happens because that is what happens in real life.
 
This book did not need to be 400 or 900 pages to give you the expanse of emotions and horror of being ruthlessly bullied. Mieko Kawakami made sure that every sentence, every word had meaning. This 167-page book weighs more than most people can carry and what many of us carry daily.
 
This was a marvelous book, and I hope not one word was wasted on showing you that. I recommend this book to everyone, whether you were bullied or the bully. However, this is a heavy book, so please read content warnings beforehand. show less

NCLA Review - Heaven is a difficult idea for us earthbound creatures to grasp. Our language and our way of thinking are earthly whereas heaven defies all this. Yet we must say something about heaven—but what?
A group of writers—pastors, artists, historians, poets, teachers, therapists, novelists, spiritual guides—was asked of help us think and speak about this enigmatic subject. Here are a few choice statements:
“Heaven exists in the presence of the God ‘unto whom all hearts are show more open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid’”; “Music is of God, and music is with God, and music is how God expresses him- or herself, and music is everywhere”; “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads” (Thoreau). This book provides refreshing images of the life to come from thoughtful, creative people.
Rating: 3—RO show less

Very accessible for beginners or those a little intimidated by the Bible. Pretty awesome book.

3.5 stars