Heaven: A Novel

“I never lost sight of the possibility that this might be a trap, but something in those notes made me feel safe, however briefly, even with all my distress.”

Heaven’s unnamed narrator is skeptical at first when he begins to receive mystery notes from someone in his class who says they want to initiate a friendship with him. His refusal to believe that the intention behind the notes is genuine shows that he has been affected by the constant bullying he has experienced, as a result of which he questions his self-worth and doesn’t see himself as worthy of friendship. Instead, his mind immediately jumps to the possibility of the notes being part of a trap. However, given how comfortable they make him feel, he considers the possibility that they may be authentic.

“I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I agreed. I felt a surge of misgivings. What did it mean for us to be friends? What was a friend supposed to do? I couldn’t bring myself to ask.”

The first time the narrator meets Kojima, he is so surprised by her request to be friends that he begins to wonder what she expects of him. This points to the narrator’s extreme self-consciousness. On one hand, it makes him very reflective. On the other hand, it causes him to be easily intimidated in social situations.

“We only ever wrote about unimportant things, but over time we came to understand each other.”

In this passage, the narrator observes that friendship is built over sharing “unimportant things.” This stresses how there is no pretense of usefulness in a friendship like that between