Reading "Scary Friends" 📚

I finished reading "Scary Friends" by Etsu Okabe.

I was drawn in from the very beginning and kept reading straight through. It was incredibly interesting!
The pleasant rhythm of the prose continued perfectly to the end, and it made me realize once again the importance of a rhythmic writing style.

As the title suggests, the story unfolds through interviews with people around a "scary friend," and I'm curious if the pacing of the prose is due to that structure or if the writing style changes with each work, so I will surely be reading other works by Etsu Okabe in the near future.

If someone close to you is a dangerous person like a psychopath, it would certainly be a disaster, but in any case, aren't there always difficulties and hardships in life?

And in today's world, where national leaders are often dangerous people, it's impossible to escape, and you're bound to be affected, so I've been thinking a lot about what to do about that.

I said "today," but it has been like that since long ago. Oda Nobunaga, Hitler, the list goes on and on.

Honestly, being hurt by someone close to you is an experience, and perhaps those things can become treasures in life. If someone like the character "Rumin" said that to me, I wonder how I would answer.

If I were suddenly caught up in a war, it would truly be a matter of life and death, so compared to that, I sometimes think that a life where you can at least control things, like running away from people who cause you suffering, might still be better,

even though I also think I wouldn't want a life full of disasters.

If you think you only need to be careful about people like the "friend" in this novel, that's not the case; you could say that living is full of dangers, couldn't you?

Perhaps I hold this belief because when I developed an incurable disease at the age of 18, I was decisively made to think, "You never know what will happen in life..."

But I cannot simply blindly believe in this conviction of my own.

The reason is that it becomes difficult to maintain a relaxed attitude toward things. I have experienced enough worry and excessive anxiety throughout my life.

No, even now, I can't say I've managed to grasp the right balance in life; I'm still lost, struggling, and feeling my way through.

Among the reviews I read, some said, "It's important to keep your distance from people like this," and while I thought, "That's true..."

I also thought, "Isn't that the case with everyone?"

Perhaps we humans are building relationships while unconsciously searching for the right distance depending on the person...

Is it really always possible to have a smooth, perfectly distanced relationship with someone from the start?

I think there are things you only learn by getting hurt, worrying, and failing. It might be an "eternal theme," so to speak.

Maybe it would be better to just breeze through life without getting too deeply involved, but I also think that would make for a dull life,

and even when writing book reviews like this, I think it's boring to only write things that are harmless and agreeable.

If there is a real "trap" set by dangerous people, isn't it that by constantly painting someone as a villain, you end up blaming that person for everything?

If you only encounter a dangerous person once in your life, you might be able to get by with saying, "It's his fault, it's all his doing," but

As I wrote earlier, I think there are many dangers in life. Therefore, what is truly "scary" is,

I feel it is the fact that by blaming others, you end up being spoiled of opportunities for growth by that person.

For example, I think this also applies to cases where parents take too much care of their children, so as a parent of an only daughter, I would like to think about this carefully.

There is a parental instinct, and it varies depending on the time and situation, so it is truly difficult.

That is precisely why I will continue to read various books, think about this and that, write, and repeat the process of thinking again.

Even when I wasn't reading it, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen next and how it would end! It is very easy to read, so I think it is a perfect book even for those who usually find it hard to make progress with their reading.