** spoiler alert ** Finishing this book and reading the other reviews, I would have to say I feel fortunate that I have read this book, as well as "Real World", before I read "Out". Most reviews compare "Grotesque" and "Out".

First of all, to many this book can be very confusing. I am not talking about the obvious translation problems when taking a book from its original context and putting it into another language. Though I would love to read it in its original context in a few years. Especially after learning the end was cut short from another review, due to the publishers not wanting to include the part about under age male prostitution to the American audience. What I mean by confusing is that the book is told through different perspectives and not one of them is a reliable narrator. This is how the author intended the book to be. The first unreliable narrator we come across is the nameless older sister of one of the main characters. Through her we learn of the others. She "lets" us read their journals and tells us her side of what happened. Even though she admits to changing some of her sisters journal entries due to "grammatical mistakes". Though she fools herself into thinking she is not jealous of her beautiful younger sister, we see through the eyes of others that she does indeed have an inferiority complex when it comes to her. She tells us from early on that her sister is so beautiful she is a monster. It isn't until the end of the book that she admits to lying when she says all she has ever wanted was to live a nondescript life. She admits to us that since she was going to lose no matter what when compared to her sister that she decided to "withdraw from the game altogether". A quote early on that she uses to compare herself and her sister is: ...I would not be the kind of flowery tree that welcomes birds and insects to gather in its branches like blossoms. I am a tree that simply existed for itself, alone."

Throughout the book we see the affect of the classist system in Japan and the obsession with beauty and perfection. This is particularly emphasized in the structure of the prestigious Q High School for Young Women. Only those that have gone through the Q school system since elementary school, signifying their family wealth and status, are the elite and able to join the clubs they want. And those admitted later through test scores soon learn that though in the same school as these students they might as well be on another planet. Kazue Sato, a classmate of the unnamed narrator, goes through school unaware of this social structure which only makes her a bigger target for bullying. She also becomes "enamored" of the unnamed narrators beautiful sister Yuriko and follows her around. This is where these two women meet and ultimately share the same fate later in life. Yuriko gets expelled for prostitution. The unnamed narrator reflect that her sister was born a whore and even in Yurikos journal entries she admits to being carnal to the core. She also admits to hating men but loving sex. Kazue Sato finishes school continues to the Q University and graduates. She becomes assistant manager at the same firm her father had worked out. However by the age of 30 she is working as a prostitute at night. She spends her whole life with a blurry image of who she really is and what she looks like. She suffered from an eating disorder since high school. Even later in life, though others are appalled at the way she looks, she is convinced she is more beautiful the skinnier she gets. She shows all her clients her business card and brags about her accomplishments at work. Yet later she steeps low enough to sell herself for　￥3,000 to homeless men outside in an alley as well as men paying her to urinate in that alley so they could watch. There is one client who makes her do much worse in a love hotel when she gets fired from the call girl job she was working and started picking up her own clients out on the street, but I am not going to write about that. Both Kazue Sato and Yuriko are murdered by a Chinese illegal immigrant Zhang, who lies about his life and events that lead up to the murders.

The author writes from a feminist perspective. There are many examples though out the books and quotes to support it. One quote I found interesting: "In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water." The unnamed author says later that her sister was an organism that constantly needed water during her demise. Another quote from the unnamed narrator to describe why she became a "permanent virgin" was: "Unlike Yuriko, I don't crave sex. I don't even like men. They're sneaky, and their faces, their bodies, and the way they think are boorish. They're selfish and will do anything to get what they want, even if it means injuring the people close to them; they don't care. Besides, all they worry about is the facade; they have absolutely no concern for what's beneath".

This book is basically one big lie after another, warped sense of self, loneliness and inability to truly connect with or understand another person. It's also about the constant pushing and pressure from family, friends, schools, and society to be perfect and desirable and how these three women pushed back. The unnamed narrator, by retreating into herself and giving into her dark side which she describes as a resentful self and of which will help her survive. Yuriko, the beautiful sister by accepting that she was only here to be used by men. And Kazue Sato, so obsessed with perfection and starved for praise and an honest affection that she sells herself at night and doesn't realize till the end that all she ever wanted was for someone to genuinely embrace her and care.