Megan Leyman

Hello to my first manga book review! 

I came across this book via recommendations on Amazon and the cover alone caught my attention, so I thought I would dive further and see what it is about. 

The plot of this book revolves around a girl who has a society anxiety disorder so such things as saying her own name (hence the title) is an issue for her, that just got me in the feels so to speak so I ordered it straight away along with my purchases. 

When I got the book the following day or so, I was really taken away by the quality of the book itself as you can see in the picture above. This first came out in 2013 in Japan before coming out in English in 2021, the mangaka/author of this book is Shuzo Oshimi. I’ve came across this author recently via Inside Mari, a manga series that is not like this at all (the series itself has to the weirdest thing I’ve read and if you have read my recent posts, you see I have read tons of manga). 

The story itself is set mainly at school, where if you were a teenager is the main location of the huge amount of pressure you are put under at that age and reason for your anxiety issues if you had them such as Shino, the focus of this book. I was shy at school not really saying much til towards the end of it/towards the start of college, I like to say because I didn’t have a group of friends to chat with at the time and I was just nervous not because of anxiety. I wouldn’t really suffer from anxiety til my early adult years but that’s for another time.  

I ended up reading this during my break at work and I really want to recommend this story, so I don’t really want to spoil the story even though there isn’t much to it, but it’s got a great message to it. 

I like to say the book gives an insight on what goes in the mind of someone with a society anxiety disorder rather well in my opinion, giving ways to express yourself such as via music which Shino does for a bit with a girl she makes friends with, going into how she can get scared at times but it’s just who she is as she is only hurting herself if she shuns herself away from everyone (because of the fear that people will just make fun of her). Well, that’s how I like to say what the story gives me, but I would love to hear your opinion on the book via the comments below. 

This is a book is for anyone early teens onwards, search the book online to find where you can purchase it as its available via kindle but there is a physical paperback which I decided on for this review.

Hope you can give this a book a chance and thank you for reading my review!

Megan

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