Name: First Love
ISBN: 9781915829139

Rio Shimamoto

Upon being arrested for the gruesome murder of her father, all college student Kanna Hijiriyama tells the police is “It’s up to you to find the motive.” Amidst the media frenzy about the woman “too beautiful to be a killer,” clinical psychologist Yuki Makabe is asked by Kanna’s lawyer to counsel the young woman as her trial approaches. Yuki slowly uncovers the dark history behind the relationships in Kanna’s life – with her father, her mother, and her “first love” – and discovers shocking inconsistencies in Kanna’s defense.

First Love

This is quite a recent translation of a contemporary crime/mystery novel and I only found out afterwards that there was a movie adaption. Maybe I’ll watch it when I get the chance.

Yuki is a psychologist who went into the profession because she wanted others to have the same chance of overcoming their childhood traumas. For her, she has not been able to forgive her father for engaging in underaged sex tourism overseas, and this revulsion extends to her mother, who she cannot forgive for remaining in the marriage. 

As part of her research, Yuki is about to conduct interviews with a young woman recently accused of murdering her own father, Kanna. This puts her in direct contact with Kanna’s government-appointed lawyer, Kasho. However, Kasho is her brother-in-law and they have history with each other from back when they were in college. Yuki’s determination to unearth the secrets of Kanna’s past leads her to push past her own discomfort. 

Kanna herself is sometimes helpful, sometimes resistant, but clearly under the thrall of an inexpressible fear that makes her internalise all blame. Kanna’s mother persists in portraying her as a consummate liar, but Yuki’s investigations soon uncovers the truth. Who is the real Kanna, and what happened to her? I think this book does raise very good questions about whether or not children can be held responsible for their responses to the abusive adults around them.

First Love

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