Reece Simmonds’s Reviews > Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone > Status Update
Reece Simmonds
is starting
This book is really engaging and incredibly well written but at the same time, I’m struggling to read more than a chapter or 2 at night
— Dec 03, 2025 05:50PM
Like flag
Reece’s Previous Updates
Reece Simmonds
is starting
'Every day, I think about my children and how each of them would be, if they were here. Today would be a birthday, for example. Or this month one of them would have been taking an entrance examination. In my heart, the children are still growing up. But I can't see them growing up’
— Dec 08, 2025 03:37PM
Reece Simmonds
is starting
The latest chapter I read was titled ‘Ghosts’ and as can be guessed, this started to introduce some of the ghost sightings and possessions that had occurred after the disaster with an introduction into the nations spirituality. There is lots I want to talk about just with this chapter alone but I don’t really have the word count. Instead, in the comments, I will condense some of the stories
— Dec 05, 2025 06:13PM
Reece Simmonds
is starting
Part 1 complete. The school talked about had 108 students. Of the 78 who were there when the tsunami hit, 74 and 10 out of the 11 teachers had died.
— Nov 24, 2025 09:39AM
Reece Simmonds
is starting
This going to be a difficult read. So far, I have read the epilogue and chapter 1 and 2 of Part 1. We have accounts of two mothers who lost their children in the disaster. Whether I am able to finish this book, I don’t know.
It’s written incredibly well though. The author was in Japan at the time and interviews the families. The accounts are simply harrowing.
— Nov 23, 2025 05:33PM
It’s written incredibly well though. The author was in Japan at the time and interviews the families. The accounts are simply harrowing.
- Headmaster, have you ever thought about the feelings of the children during that hour that they were waiting? How scared they must have been - have you thought about that? How cold they were, and their screaming for their mums and dads. And there was a hill, a hill right there!
- You people who came to the school after the road was cleared - you don't know anything. I was there when it was just trees, pine trees scattered all around. We didn't know where to start. Walking through the water in boots, with that sound, squelch-squelch. You'll never understand what it was like to walk through that water, with the squelching, and the mud getting into your boots.
Even when they found their own children, mums and dads came back to look for the others. What did you look for? Fuck you. You looked for the school safe.
- Will you come to the school, Headmaster? Will you search?
- We'll lend you a shovel, if you don't have one.
- If you haven't got the boots, we can give you as many as you want.
- You've only got nice leather shoes, haven't you?
- And he's got a nice camera.
- It took us four years to have a child ...
- Us too. We managed only after long years. And now he's gone.
- Can't you do something?
- Please return our child to us.