Kokoro is a lonely teenager who’s been bullied by classmates to the point of dropping out of school. She spends her days in her bedroom, afraid to leave the house, until one day, her bedroom mirror starts to glow. When she touches it, she’s pulled into a strange castle, along with 6 other teens. The castle is guarded by a girl in wolf mask who tells them there’s a hidden key, and whoever finds it will be granted one wish. The Wolf Queen, as they call her, tells them they have one year to find the key–after that, the castle will be closed to them forever.
As the year passes, Kokomo and the other teens begin to get to know each other and learn more about why each of them were brought to the castle. In the process they make some surprising discoveries about the differences and similarities between their lives.
I really liked this book. It’s easy to empathize with Kokoro, and her experiences made me thankful that my teenage years are behind me. The story seemed complicated when I was reading it, but now looking back, it’s incredibly simple and wraps up so neatly. It does drag in the middle. The teens agree early on that they want to spend as much time in the castle as possible, and therefore they won’t look for the key until the year is almost up. That means a good portion of the middle of the book is just them hanging out in the castle, talking, and that was slow for me. But on the whole, this was a lovely little book with a sweet message about taking care of each other.
