Generally I don't like reading books about important worldwide events I myself experienced. At the same time I have a huge weakness for Japanese literary fiction. This quite short story is about loneliness, about isolation, something we all experienced and it really hit close to home. On the other hand it still carries the weirdness and tense atmosphere a lot of books from this category have, it pulls you into this weird trance you get out way after finishing the book, it makes you spiral, makes you feel unsettled and what more could you want from a bizarre Japanese novella.

I have steered clear of books that reference the pandemic as it feels too much like recent history but Someone to Watch Over You is a book I am glad I broke this rule for. I thought the simplicity of the writing perfectly expressed the two characters and their sentiments. Often, I find with short books that I don't fully connect or understand the characters but that was not the case here. It constantly kept me guessing as to what was going to happen next without straying into the realms of the unlikely.

Someone to Watch Over You is a very strange novel that lies firmly in the Japanese literary fiction genre.

The story follows two misfits - Tae, a schoolteacher who has been blamed for the death of a student and who now spends her days in fear of reprisals and Shinobu, a former security guard turned handyman who knocked a protestor over causing her death.

The pair find each other during Covid and quickly form a strange bond that strengthens over the months that follow as they try to absolve themselves of their guilt.

The atmosphere throughout this novella is extremely claustrophobic not only using the fear of infection from strangers but also the threat from those who hold them responsible for the deaths they have been accused of causing.

They are both strange and isolated characters whose connection is permanently under strain and all this culminates in a disturbing but compelling story that is hard to stop reading.

Recommended for fans of Japanese literary fiction.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the advance review copy.

The novel had a constant partner in the form of a grey cloud, hovering over its every syllable—yet the minimalist style of writing leaves the reader praying for a twist in fate, for once in favour of the leading characters.

In a dash to escape from their troubled past, the paths of a handyman and a former schoolteacher converge by fate in a world fraught with the effects of the coronavirus. Trading privacy for safety, the two protagonists live a lonely life at opposite ends of the same house, each playing the role of a stipulated observer to the other, never interfering through action or speech.

Themes of Isolation and Mistrust

In a world filled with mistrust, trust becomes a commodity—hoarded like food and tissues—taken without careful inspection in the name of 'mutual beneficence.' The detachment forces the reader to understand the dynamic of the protagonists in subtle actions and words unspoken. Are you really in exile if you are with someone? Despite distress and distrust, the need for even a small community is evident.

Writing Style

Though a quick read in terms of page count, the novel is emotionally dense. Its minimalist style strips away excess, leaving behind raw emotion and quiet tension, whether in a shopping centre or within the confines of the protagonists’ home. The atmosphere remains heavy throughout, mirroring the uncertainty and isolation of the pandemic itself.

An Open-Ended Conclusion

The ending was inconclusive and open-ended, mirroring the lives of so many during the global pandemic. As much as we'd like to know "why Shinobu did not eat" among other unanswered questions, the novel suggests that not everything has a reason just as we all had peculiar habits during the lockdown.

Conclusion

The book does not seek to offer solace through an uplifting moral or a happy ending. Instead, it delves into raw emotion and human impulse in times of hardship and paranoia. It pushes the reader to question what kind of person they would have been in their place—and whether that identity is genuine or merely a transient reaction destined to fade into memory.

Thank you, Kumi Kimura, Asa Yoneda, Pushkin Press, and NetGalley for the digital copy. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The story is set during the initial months of the pandemic. Tae and Shinobu experience isolation for different reasons and slowly form a symbiotic relationship when Tae hires Shinobu for a handyman job. They begin to rely on each other and even end up living in the same space, though divided from one another in separate bubbles, establishing forms of communication that don't rely face to face contact, due to paranoia over the virus. Both long for comfort and need things that the other can provide. It is a microcosm for the pandemic as a whole and how people within communities dealt with the isolation and loneliness it created whilst still needing others to do their part to keep society running.

There is an overall atmosphere of brooding isolation, fear, paranoia and claustrophobia. It is very much a pandemic story, highlighting some of the worst negative feelings experienced by people within that initial year and specifically how this impacted the lives of the two protagonists. There is also commentary on how communities turned against people that they deemed to pose a greater risk.

What makes this story interesting from a character perspective is that the two are burdened by similar guilt caused by actions in their past. They grapple with this alone and in very different ways as their pasts come back to haunt them at the same time. Tae makes assumptions due to paranoia, causing her to become socially isolated and reclusive. She has conversations in her head where she assumes the worst of how people view her. Her burden of guilt leads to fear for her own safety. Shinobu on the other hand is presented with somewhat more questionable morals. Unlike Tae, his ostracisation is not his own choice. His burden of guilt leads him to become a danger to himself as he finds ways to relieve the pressure. The two different reactions and approaches to their own guilt felt very typical within Japanese gender roles and constructs.

It is a slow, delicate and grounded story. Information regarding the characters' pasts is sparsely drip fed to the reader throughout, allowing a slow understanding of the weight that each carries, though never providing full assurance of their innocence in their past actions or an idea of their true personalities. There is a constant feeling that information is being withheld and both characters undergo processes of cognitive dissonance to justify their actions as they relive the past. The fact that we never truly know them is symbolic of how divided they are and how they never truly know each other. This detachment is also required for the atmosphere of dread and uncertainty and for the mystery over their pasts. However, I would have preferred to be able to empathise with them a little more and ended up feeling somewhat detached from them.

The prose is minimalist and sparse, though the translation by Asa Yoneda reads well and does a very good job of retaining the nuisances of Japanese culture. Interestingly, many original Japanese words are retained in Romanised form. It would be worthwhile looking up anything that you don't initially understand if you aren't overly familiar with Japanese culture, as comprehension of the story could be lost if the words were to be skipped over. For example, not knowing that a fusuma is a sliding partition door that can be used to divide rooms, you may initially think there are scenes where the two characters are in the same room and sharing the same space when they are in fact isolated from each other due to the screen.

The ending is extremely ambiguous which some may find frustrating. However, I felt that the ambiguity fed the paranoia in a satisfying way and it felt very much filtered through the perspective of one of the characters.

Overall, the story is an interesting character study on guilt and dependence, filtered through the unique modifiers brought about by the pandemic and the way in which individuals and communities struggled to adjust.

Excellent. Very poignant and interesting to read especially in a post-covid world. Really enjoyed it.

"Would the world look different when he woke up tomorrow?"

Kumi Kimura's upcoming novella is set in early 2020, when the world is in chaos as covid spreads, two lonely people, both seeking to break with their pasts, meet and start sharing a home. A former teacher accused of driving a student to suicide asks a former security guard who was captured on video knocking down a protester who died soon after, to move in with her as she feels unsafe. Life for these two is tense, they communicate by avoiding direct contact through notes and their shared presences, close yet distant. Their odd connection, with neither affection nor trust, brings them a kind of privacy and safety they both need but it comes at a cost.

This novella brings back the days of Covid, the many little things people did to keep socially distant and coped with isolating within their homes. The dynamic of these two characters was interesting to explore. The atmosphere at their home was highly intense with fear at every turn. Both of these characters are trying to cope with a heavy guilt while dealing with the circumstances that had brought them together.

At times it felt nostalgic and unsettling. The way in which the author has written this novella is beautiful yet quite dark.

I did enjoy reading this one, it was a quick reflective story.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this one...

The writing was very choppy and jumped around a lot that it made it difficult to follow. I just was not as interested in this story or the characters as I wanted to be.

This was unsettling and at times claustrophobic to read. The man and the woman featured in this book are both carrying guilt with them for previous mistakes in life, and as a result are drawn to each other. I enjoyed the writing and its easy, simple style. While the plot wasn’t massively interesting, it still kept me motivated to finish the story. The ambitious ending was a little bit of a let down, but overall a different and unusual read.

“Someone to Watch Over You”, for me, was a quite thought-provoking and insightful read. Set in early 2020 in Japan during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature of loneliness and the desire for human connection - perhaps against one’s own conscious will - is examined. Shinobu and Tae, through two very different circumstances, have both been accused of causing the death of someone else and have suffered the social and emotional consequences of such an allegation. The two come together for a working relationship that is beneficial in different ways for each of them, although their interactions are limited by fear of the spread of the virus. The ending, for me, was vague and open for interpretation, which I greatly enjoyed.

This book was very sharp and reflective. Taking place during covid, and reflecting on connections made and lost during this time, these character studies were very tense, complex, and emotional.

This was unsettling, smart, and disruptive, and very beautifully written.

Someone to Watch Over Me is a bit of a time-capsule read in some ways, reliant as it is on the memory of the COVID-19 pandemic to understand the situation the characters are in and the reasons for many of their thoughts and actions throughout the story. It focuses on the ideas of paranoia and isolation as the two characters, both of whom are struggling with personal trauma, end up coming together in search of connection. This was a quick and easy read on one level, but it was also atmospheric, with darkness shimmering around its edges. It was an interesting psychological study, and whether the connection forged between the characters is positive or negative overall is really left up to personal interpretation. It was certainly an intriguing and different read, and I am giving it four stars.

A short but disturbing story set during COVID-19 in Japan, about 2 individuals who are both living a sad, solitary existence in a world fragmented by fear caused by the pandemic. Shinobu is a former security guard and Tae a former teacher. They are both trying to escape a past where through different circumstances, they were accused of causing the death of another person. Tae hires Shinobu to assist her with some work at home and they form a strange bond of sorts, sharing her home while keeping physical and psychological distance from each other.

This novella really is a curiously disturbing read and the author does a brilliant job of building an oppressive atmosphere. It's a great study of isolation in circumstances that have created paranoia and distrust in the community and describes how 2 people come together to live in awkward circumstances, choosing to minimize their interactions and communicate mostly through non-verbal means.

Firstly, I want to say thank you to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Someone to Watch Over You is a gripping and claustrophobic read. The prose was simple yet it had me gripped. I finished this entirely in one sitting. I'll be honest I wasn't even expecting to have even started it today let alone finish it but I couldn't stop reading.

The novella follows Tae and Shinobu during the early periods of the COVID outbreak, a time where everyone was hostile to outsiders and where interactions were limited. Tae ends up hiring Shinobu as a sort of bodyguard to watch over her house after an insane bout of paranoia.

No one writes loneliness and a gradually building sense of fear like Japanese authors. The story felt suffocating and I could feel the characters loneliness and desperation seeping through the story.The relationship between the main characters felt so unsettling. Despite them both living together they're still strangers and have a deep distrust for eachother.

The paranoia and anxiety they both feel is deeply reminiscent of COVID times and it's so strange to read about it and look back on what was happening. So much was said with this short story and it has such a long lasting impact. It's eerie, meaningless, detached, yet all consuming at the same time.

I really enjoyed this novella. It was strange and stifling; it felt like the weeping angels from Doctor Who were constantly watching as I read, over my shoulder.

Amazing I really liked this book. Kimura's writing style was so good and I enjoyed reading the characters and their development. I think this was a well written book with beautiful writing and layered characters

Someone to Watch Over You follows a snippet of the lives of two people: a middle-aged woman living alone in her parents old house and a handyman who she calls to do odd jobs around the house. The circumstances in which the two characters meet become more and more peculiar and there is an distinct overarching sense of foreboding that pervades the atmosphere of the novella. The narrative takes place in the midst of a pandemic meaning the two protagonists take up most of the narrative space. This narrow insight into the events of the novella forge an unreliable portrait of the events and ultimately left me wondering what and who were actually real.

Kimura creates an interesting reflection on guilt, shame and isolation, and forges an unlikely friendship between two people who are plagued with a similar sense of paranoia. However, the kinship between the woman and the handyman is confused by their power dynamic, she as employer and him as employee. This forces them to keep a distance between them emotionally as a well as physically (because of the pandemic) and there is a feeling that neither of their guilt can be relieved without a revelation between the two of them.

3.5/5 for me.
I love Japanese novellas and have read a good amount. I also lived in Japan during the pandemic so elements of the routine in this book felt familiar.
The description of this book drew me in, as well as the fact it was a translated book from a Japanese author.
I did enjoy that it was a fast and short read. However, I did not feel connected to the characters in the way that I had hoped - I really wish there was more background on Tae - and did not feel fully immersed in the story. The ending fell short for me, although I am sure others would disagree. I would definitely read another book from this author though! I did like the writing style, just wish there was more content to piece it together.

I think what this book is asking is: as human beings, what do we owe to one another? It is the year of the pandemic. The two main characters, Tae and Shinobu, are social outcasts and completely alienated but it’s not like they’re victims.

Tae is a middle-aged woman living off her savings by herself. Twenty years ago, she was a teacher until a student of hers left her a note accusing her of making his life miserable by grouping him with bullies. The student died in what seemed to be a drowning accident, but both she and his father know it might be suicide. Coincidentally, her neighbour who moved in during the height of the pandemic paranoia also committed suicide after he couldn’t take the isolation, and she feels in some way responsible for having contributed to that. When she starts fearing for her own safety, she invites a homeless man, Shinobu, to live with her rent-free in exchange for watching over her house.

Shinobu was a victim of a love scam and ended up being at the mercy of his older brother’s family, but everyone hates him because they thought he was a lecherous pedophile over a misunderstanding. It is also hinted that he likely is, what with how he views his niece and his attempts at controlling his behaviour. He agrees to move in with Tae because it’s better than roughing it outdoors through the seasons. We also find out that he may have indirectly caused the death of an activist.

I noticed that whenever the narrative POV switches, they never refer to each other by name—it’s always “the man” or “the woman”—remaining essentially strangers. Despite their close quarters and similar lifestyles/ haunting pasts, the pair fail to establish any kind of connection or shared routine; instead they seem to be somnambulists spending their lives with their eyes closed to the world, each other, and themselves.

The Covid pandemic in 2020 brings two unlikely souls together as they both hide from their pasts and try to avoid each other and other people while living in the same house as landlady and tenant. The landlady, a former teacher, is so determined to be proper because she is living in the same house with a male, a security guard, that she never sees him and only communicates by notes with the tenant.

This leads to a very bizarre situation, when we wonder at the end, whether the security guard is still alive or has gone, and whether his continued presence is just a dream the landlady lives in. I couldn't decide, and that made the book both unsettling and thought provoking.

I enjoyed reading this but I'm so puzzled by that ending. It feels unfinished. Idk if that was on purpose or not. It doesn't feel like the usual intentional open ended story. But otherwise I was v invested in the characters And the story. I don't exactly know how to feel about it because that end was so abrupt for me. I was hoping for some clarity or closure. Yet the gloomy vibe, the tortured headspaces, the symbiotic relationship which was somehow maintained with complete detachment was so interesting to read about.
Thanks net-galley for the e-arc.