Here is a book for boys, and especially the sort of boys who are interested in Japan. It starts off strong, with a 13 year old boy figuring out how to watch his mother undressing in her bedroom. She gets a sailor for boyfriend, so soon he is seeing more than this, and in particular the sailor’s ‘temple tower.’ (?!?)
The boy is in a creepy gang, and they SPOILER ALERT murder a kitten. I cannot tell you too much about this part because I skipped it. The boyfriend becomes a step-dad, and when he catches the boy peeping, does not beat him but has a healthy conversation with him about it. The boy is horrified, thinking this is unmanly, and so his creepy gang plans to SPOLIER ALERT murder the sailor.
Why?! What was the point of this?!? I am not sure. However, I enjoyed this description of a ship’s horn: “a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale’s back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory of voyages beyond counting, the joys, the humiliations: the sea was screaming. “