Bright Pupil

Bright Pupil is a novel by Qiluo, published by Haitian Publishing House in August 2009 and also circulated under the title Kiss My Peter Pan. The novel was originally titled Bright Pupil; a different title was chosen for publication. It runs to ten chapters, each named after a solar term, and the final chapter, "Bright Pupil · The Eye of Light," gives the book its name. The protagonist, Yi Botong, grows up in a single-parent home, never having met her mother, raised by her short-tempered, obsessive-compulsive father, Yi Shu. At seven, an accident leaves her right eye blinded by Dai Moyu, the son of Dai Suyan. Mockery, taunts, and cold stares come at her again and again, and the already silent girl withdraws further into herself. At seventeen, after countless hardships, she finally enters high school, yet remains aloof and solitary, using a façade to mask her self-doubt. At school she is looked after by two very different boys: Qiao Su, seen as a good kid, and Ji Chuanshi, seen as a bad one. Meanwhile, Dai Suyan and Dai Moyu—now severely autistic—reenter her life after years apart; harder still to bear, Dai Suyan has secretly been involved with her father, Yi Shu, for ten years. Old matters are dredged up again, and Yi Botong must face her elders' secrets, her physical and emotional wounds, and the question of whether she will keep hiding. Written in a delicate, lucid style, the novel portrays the pain and loneliness of youth, and the way young people illuminate one another and move toward the light amid their flaws. It is a healing coming-of-age work in the "Youth Film Book Series."