Just finished re-reading (for the 3rd time) Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (the novel, not the manga).
Basic summary:
Japan's youth are horrible. They're causing too much trouble and frankly there are too many of them. So in light of this, Japan's government has created something called the "BR ACT" or Battle Royale. Each year 32 classes of high school students are chosen and then they are taken to various isolated places where they fight it out and kill each other till there is only 1 student remaining. Each student is given a bag with bread, water, and a weapon (anything ranging from an UZI to a spork, yes. A spork.) In the book we follow a single class and watch as they deal with having to kill people they've called friends, watch just how fickle humans can be when their lives are on the line, see just how little you can truly trust someone in the line of fire.
Great book, everyone should pick it up. It's basically a modern lord of the flies and worth the time reading.
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After Finishing BR for the 3rd time I switched to Boogiepop and Others by Kouhei Kadono and it blew my mind. Just wow. Pick this up. Now. No you don't have to have seen the anime. No you don't have to know anything about the series ( I sure as hell didn't) but pick it up now.
Pretty much there's been young girls disappearing from school and no one's doing anything about it. However there's a legend amongst the girls - a legend of Boogiepop; a shinigami or god of death. Boogiepop has appeared and is taking souls...or is he? In reality there's darker things at work here - namly the maneater Manticore.
It's just a great book.
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Right now I'm reading Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe. I have absolutely no clue what it's about because I'm just on the first page... >< Yea.