Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Seven Japanese kids all suffer from issues, so they all decide they just can't bear going to school. It's a different one for all of them, but they don't seem to fit in.
Until one day, they can enter a magical castle through their mirrors. This sounds all too convenient, until they learn the rules. They have to leave by 5 pm or the ruler of the place the Wolf Queen eats them. They have a year to find a magical key, with with one of them can have a wish come true. The catch is, if they do that they get their memories of the castle and each other erased and the place disappears. If they last the year without a wish, the castle still disappears, but they keep their memories.

Man, I enjoyed this one so much. We see the events through Kokoro, a girl who got bullied by a gang of popular girls so much she gets panic attacks if she has to go to the convenience store.
Now, your milage may vary, but I found so many moments and feelings Kokoro had to be so very accurate. So many things that the author put to words that are so familiar. The way she described the feeling when bullies can feel they are perfectly justified and are not doing such a bad thing was profound, like the two parties are supposed to make up, but the offending party can't seem to understand that they were wrong.
All in all, I think the way the author portrayed certain things was just very honest. The resolution also didn't involve a miraculous “everyone was misunderstood, the mean kids realised they are wrong or even we discover they were hurting themselves”. The solution is much different. The characters change through themselves and each other.
At one point someone even says something that many YA-aimed books seem to ignore; there will always be people who have an issue with you. Mean people. Conflicts. But you can get through it all with your own resilience and that's just it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a depressing book. It's hopeful in a way that achievable, even if the story is magical realism, with fantastical elements. The message still stands.

Now I feel magical realism has one thing that isn't a hit with everyone; somehow the dialogues seem just a bit... odd. Dreamlike, I guess. Probably the fact that it's translated from Japanese also plays a part in that. If you don't like that, you won't like this. I personally don't have an issue with it.

The magical elements are present from the get go. The reason why the characters meet is magic, but it's more prominent in the second half. There is one big plot twist, which I could guess accurately. It's pretty clever, I liked it a lot, but I could piece it together.
It also means some bittersweet things for the characters. So if you expect a 100% happy ending, you won't get it. It won't be a flawless, Disney type of win. But it will be lovely and leave all the characters changed for the better.

I would definitely recommend this one.