#shift in emotional sensitivity
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“We were all so clueless that it was kind of hilarious.” (p. 209)
Five teenagers, in their final year of high school, quietly embark on a quest to disentangle the venal contingencies that bind their soft and elegant egos to the fabric of whatever constitutes their self-identity. This journey is neither planned nor intentional, but through it all, there is a fever of inevitability that refuses to break, a chancing of emotional uncertainty that harangues the good with the bad, with the hope of discerning the best.
I HAVE A SECRET fits nicely among Sumino’s better titles for its indisputably slick concept and clever, low-key execution. Five kids each possess the ability to read other people’s emotions, but there are two meaningful snags: (1) each character reads emotions differently, and (2) none of the characters know the other characters possess such a skill. The result is a puzzling together (or apart) of teenage anxiety, romance, and overconfidence through five different lenses and just as many multipliers of consequences.
Kyou is the most level-headed of the group. He is also, however, critically introverted and resists the urge to speak his mind to those he cares for most. Internally, this registers as cowardice. Externally, this registers as forlornness. And since Kyou reads others’ emotions as punctuation marks floating above people’s heads, he’s self-conscious about monitoring his behavior to soothe the emotional well-being of others. An exclamation mark? Excitement. Eagerness. An ellipses? Deep in thought. An interrobang? Hyper-cautious.
I HAVE A SECRET is an equally funny and tense read for how it renders scenarios that are equally perfect, and equally horrible, for Kyou, or others, to analyze in situ. Kyou, for example, has a massive crush on Miki-san, the exuberant and athletic girl at the front of the class. If the boy reads Miki-san’s floating punctuation as that of a girl aching for emotional validation, does he step forward and fill in the gap? The girl’s personality is as bright as a shining sun, but there is a hesitancy and an emptiness about her. Does Kyou’s knowing this give him the right to help her? Even though she has no idea who he is? Would this endear him to her? Or would he be abusing her emotional availability?
The ambiguity surrounding these questions and others fuel the novel’s industrious annexation of young adults in search of belonging. Readers learn early and often there are no easy answers.
Kuroda-san is a girl frequently chided for saying or doing something awkward. She enjoys being different, even if it means “hid[ing] the truth behind some other truth” (p. 150). She enjoys doing the unexpected. It humors her and gives her energy. Kuroda cares for her friends deeply and meddles incessantly, but affectionately, because it adds color and fragrance to the world. And how, exactly, does Kuroda see the world? She can read the heart rate of others. Perhaps that’s why, beneath the veneer of the excitable and “looney” Kuroda, rests the unsteady sense of self of a girl constantly modulating her behavior.
Alas, reading into the temperance of the hearts of others can prove troublesome. Does an even heartrate imply calmness or depression? Does an elevated heartrate imply quizzical affection worthy of a nudge in the right direction or does it imply a tepid nervousness inching ever so slightly toward trauma?
These boundaries are indefinite. And the blurrier the boundaries, the less palatable one’s desire to become his or her own person. Readers won’t be surprised then, when Zuka-san, a sporty and popular boy, and friend to Kuroda, gives the girl a reality check by declaring the fact that they can’t succeed at being who they want to be is precisely what pushes them to keep on trying (Zuka: “We know who we wanna be, but we suck at it. We can’t keep up the charade. We slip up at the most critical times – especially me lately – but I think that’s why it never gets tiring,” p. 153).
I HAVE A SECRET successfully pivots in this way, from purposefully jocular (Why is Miki changing her shampoo every three days?) to calculated tension (Why did the quiet girl who sits next to Kyou stop coming to school all of a sudden?). It uses its characters’ unique abilities to read the emotions of others to position them to help one another, to harm one another, to believe in one another, to scare one another, and to find themselves in one another.
The novel asks difficult questions about the evanescence of young love: Miyazato-san can see arrows between people who have found true love, but sinks deeper into sadness upon realizing nobody’s arrow ever finds her. The novel also asks difficult questions about the credulity of knowing oneself and exposing that knowledge to others: Zuka knows his apathy is his blind spot, but he also believes it’s sinful to cling to others, “hoping to one day find the humanity [he] never had” (p. 201).
One particularly commendable facet of this book is its pacing and scope. The book takes place over the course of the teenagers’ final year in high school, spring through autumn/winter. Each character snares a chapter, and each chapter takes place several weeks following the previous. This structure gives the characters and events room to flex and breathe and impresses upon readers the fundamental impermanence of things. Another day, another test. Another week, another club activity. Life moves on. Emotions shift. People change.
The narrative voices aren’t too differentiated, with a few exceptions (e.g., Miki is too hilariously high-energy to miss), but the shift in emotional sensitivity from character (chapter) to character (chapter) is so unmistakable that Sumino can be forgiven for not varying perspective as deliberately.
And yet, I HAVE A SECRET, for all its mucking in the shadows of what a darkened heart is known for, is a novel with a positive outlook. There are romantic misunderstandings and platonic pledges of fealty, sure, but the book makes a conscious effort to show readers that it’s worth exploring the difficult stuff so as to get to the better, kinder, gentler aspects of personal relationships. The challenge, of course, rests in not giving up until one’s time is true.
Light-Novel Reviews||ahb writes on Good Reads
