Hotel Iris, by Yoko Ogawa

OH MAN. Totally forgot I read this book until I loaded my photos onto the computer. I guess that shows what an impact it made on me.

This is a really thin book. It didn't take long to read. It's translated from Japanese. It's about Mari, a teenager who's had to drop out of school to help her mother run their hotel. Her mother is strict and rather awful- there's a metaphor I don't get about how she does Mari's hair every morning, and she's pretty obsessive about it.

Mari gets into this weird submissive relationship with a much older man. I couldn't understand the attraction at all. I guess I couldn't understand this book much. I wanted to like it more. I didn't hate it.