Naoko: Keigo Higashino

*SPOILER AHEAD*

When I first read the book synopsis to know what it is all about, I was quite taken a back. A mother and his daughter catch up in an bus accident because a human error. His husband, Heisuke, comes to the emergency room, to see his wife take her last breath. At least I still have my daughter, Monami, he thinks at first, but he will never expect what was waiting ahead of him. As his daughter emerging from a comma and slowly regaining her consciousness, the first thing she tells her husband is that she is Naoko, her wife, trapped in his daughter's body.

The book, or maybe the writer, has what it takes to turn the story in wrong turn in so many ways. Yet, I'm truly fascinated by how the writer present it in a careful way without omitting realistic details that likely to occur in real life. 

It starts from the confusion of why Naoko's mind takes control inside Monami's body. Having no concrete answer to it and no logical explanation, they believed that their daughter were already dead and succumb to the supernatural phenomenon. Not ended there, Naoko now have to accept both roles as a housewife and elementary school student and they can't tell a single soul of what have happened to them. The problems also arise throughout their lives. Heisuke and Naoko seems to live a different life and also have different purposes. While Naoko doesn't want to repeat the same mistake she done in her previous life, Heisuke find it hard to accept the fact that his wife slowly getting far away from him and busy herself with study to be an independent woman. If you question whether sensitive contents are included such as traumatic experience and sexuality, the answer is definitely yes. How they going to have sex as spouses from now on, how they would act in outer world, and how Naoko's psyche is starting to change because after all she was inside a teenage girl. I also love how the writer also involve perspective from the driver's family, how they also struggle from his mistake and the reason why he takes the overwork job to provide his family from his first marriage. To gives the story a definite conclusion, the writer hits the climax by estabishing monami's comeback along with Naoko impending disappearance. And in the end while Heisuke question whether Naoko is actually still there in Monami's wedding day. 

'To choose the path that would bring happiness to the person I love'. That one passage is enough for Heisuke to accept any truth.

Definitely one of Keiko's best non-crime fiction books out there!