I’ve been hearing good things about Lonely Castle in the Mirror on Instagram and I’m so glad that I read it because it is amazing! Honestly, I was captivated from the first page!

Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a touching fantasy about the power of community. Kokoro has been unable to go to school due to a bullying situation and she spends her days holed up in her home. One day, her mirror starts glowing and she and five other students are pulled into a magical castle. There, the mysterious Wolf Queen gives them a task: find the hidden key and your wish will be granted.

To be honest, the reason Lonely Castle in the Mirror started strong for me was that Kokoro’s situation is very familiar to me. It didn’t happen to me, but someone close to me has had the same situation – stomachaches at the thought of school that seem to be psychosomatic. Seeing her like this made the story realistic to me and I started rooting for Kokoro to find happiness almost immediately.

While there is a quest of sorts for the children, most of the book doesn’t focus on the search for the key. And that makes sense – if you have a magical escape that will disappear when the quest ends, why would you want to end it early? What Kokoro and her friends need is a sense of community and competing against one another is not going to create that for them. Instead, what we get is a slow move towards friendship, and we grow closer to the characters as they learn more about each other.

But this focus on characters doesn’t mean that the book is plotless. The search for the key and the reason for the quest is definitely a driving force in the novel and I was impressed with how Tsujimura put in small clues that made me go “aha!” when the solution was revealed. For me, the pacing of the story was perfect and I loved how the story balanced Kokoro’s real-life struggles with what was going on in the castle.

Speaking of her struggles, Kokoro’s struggle with bullying was something that I thought was handled brilliantly. Tsujimura managed to paint a wide range of realistic responses to the situation – from Kokoro’s response to her mother and teacher’s reaction. Sadly, bullies tend to be pretty charming and it’s easy for them to cast themself in an innocent light – something that Kokoro experienced. But in real life, there often isn’t a tidy solution to bullying and I appreciate that the book didn’t try to use magic to solve all the problems.

If you cannot tell, I adored this book. I read it during a rather hectic time at school and even though the book could be rather dark at times, I found so much comfort in its pages too. I think that Tsujimura has written a realistic but hopeful tale and fans of books like Brave Story will definitely want to pick this up.