Seventh grader Hayashi Renei is troubled by a strange dream: Her dead brother - killed in an automobile accident - comes back to life as Coo. The dream comes again the following night and then every night thereafter. Coo's world is a cruel one - crueler than the real world, even - with its own share of pain, suffering and sadness. Renei is searching for her house with her brother and others whom she meets in Coo's world so that she can return to reality and the land of the living. When she reaches the end of the journey she is convinced that she will not have to visit Coo in her dreams again. But, six months later, a classmate, Kaya, falls off a building and pulls Renei down with her. Unconscious now, Renei finds herself back in Coo's world. This, she realizes, is the home of the dead and she meets her late father. Does this mean that Renei is dead, too? Will she ever return to the land of living? A literary fantasy that graphically describes the emotional struggle of a girl growing up, tossed between dreams and reality. <i>(Kodansha)</i>
