A review by magmun
People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami

4.0

This collection of short stories made me feel nostalgic for a place and time that has never existed to me. The young almost naive narrator brings out a fanciful but still somehow grounded image of childhood that sets a consistent tone throughout. Many of the stories feel like half real half imagined memories that really capture the way children will often use make believe to compensate for what they can’t understand. I could see myself and the people I grew up around in these characters despite there not necessarily being direct parallels. I could still relate to the seemingly mundane at times stories that for some reason or another stick in a child’s mind.