Waking up feels like plunging, tumbling, or falling, but not downwards. It’s more like rising upwards from the black depths of sleep into a world of murky blue. The opening lines of The Lake of Tears demand the reader’s attention immediately. The paradoxical sensation of falling upwards just before waking is universally familiar yet elusive, and in this coming-of-age novel, Veeraporn Nitiprapha gives words to that feeling and to the emotional journey of growing up in the shadow of loss. The Lake of Tears is Veeraporn’s third novel, following The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth and Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat, both recipients of the prestigious Southeast Asian Writers Award. Unlike those novels, it is her first foray into fiction for young people, yet rather than a departure from her signature style, it feels like a refinement, exploring familiar themes of longing, memory, abandonment, and love through a simpler lens, where the language remains lyrical, the emotions are no less profound, and the narrative retains the surreal, fairy-tale like quality that marks her unique way of writing.