#変な家

186 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

novel token
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Discussion chat for 変な家! Remember to use spoiler tags for any plot-related information, even if the schedule is past it (we often have people catching up, so be kind to them, too!)

Be excellent to each other, go forth and have fun!

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wanton rain
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(from the description and the cover)
I'm kind of intimidated that it's not one of those novels that got adapted into anime.
Feels like a... Real book shark_laugh shark_laugh

novel token
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Actually I had a quick browse of the structure as I was doing the schedule - I'm actually super interested? It looks like it's structured kind of like a found-documents report style thing talking about the house floor by floor and room by room instead of like a traditional story

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I love stuff like this, I'm so keen

errant wren
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I’ve been peeking (because I’m going to try having a vocab list again, I didn’t like it last time I did it but I want to try again). It’s certainly an interesting format. Kind of reminds me of reading screenplays, sort of.

tiny ocean
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I’m gonna get the book today shark_faito I’m excited!

serene estuary
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Until where is the 1st week?

errant wren
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Until the sub chapter break named 二つの浴室

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I searched for it and put a highlight so I know where it’ll break once we start to read tomorrow.

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Japanese books sure seem to do page breaks rather differently from western books. It’s pretty rare (at least in the western books I’ve read) to see anything that isn’t chapter numbers. Maybe it’ll have a part 1, part 2, part 3, etc.. but still chapter numbers inside of it. But I’ve already read a good few Japanese books where they have various breaks with non-numbered sub chapters names, or non-text things like ********

novel token
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Yeah, this one was hard because its subheadings aren't super easy to find except by searching ...
But as Squintina said, it's a subheading in the first section. If you search the text from the schedule I'm pretty sure that you'll only get the subheading titles. I'll post a screenshot of what they look like on my copy when I'm not at uni

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And I feel like in Western books I've seen, it depends a bit on genre and audience what kind of numbering/titling they use?

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Just number, just title and both are all common enough that I don't go "oh, huh, that's weird" when I encounter any one of them, it's just like "oh OK that's the one we're going with, cool."

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I have definitely seen English-language books with art or symbols for scene breaks within chapters - like the *** or --- or a little horizontal design or something

errant wren
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Hmm, I just feel like it happens more in the Japanese books, but it could just be luck

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Not like my sample size is anywhere representative of the whole of modern Japanese literature 😝

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I’m excited to start tomorrow. I’m trying having a vocab list again (thanks JPDB) and I started it a week early to see how many actually stuck once I start reading.

novel token
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Oh yeah - and while I've read pretty eclectically in English I'm pretty sure my sample can't be considered representative there either

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I think also it depends on the size of the book? English books I think either use scene breaks if it's a huge book and chapters either cover decent-size time skips or they have POV switches in them. And most of the time people start new chapters for that? Unless you're writing like ... high fantasy housebrick novels or it's an older book?

serene estuary
errant wren
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So week 1 shows it starts at “Start” (the beginning of the book), week 2 shows it starts at that subchapter

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Though the last week shows the end point

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So now I’m confused too

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It’s the due date. So the end point of the previous week when a new week starts. It is very confusing. The beginner club’s schedule is written more clearly, but they also read on actual days rather than people reading on their own over a week, so I guess it makes sense that their schedule is more clear

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Start Date: Mon 28th July

Due Dates:
Wk1 (4th Aug): p.22(13-15-ish) - 二つの浴室
Wk2 (11th): p.42 (20) - 事実
Wk3 (18th): p.63 (21) - 差異
Wk4 (25th): p.79 (16) - 変化
Wk5 (1st Sep): p.103 (24) - 秘密
Wk6 (8th): p.120 (17) - 第三章　記憶の中の間
Wk7 (15th): p.136 (16) - 時間の謎
WK8 (22nd): p.154 (18) - 本当の姿
Wk9 (29th): p.178 (24) - 兄弟
Wk10 (6th Oct): p.203 (15) - 計画
WK11 (13th): p. 219 (16) - 垣清次さんを殺害・遺棄したとして、○○署に出頭して
Wk12 (20th): p.228 (19) - END

Optionally, in the last week you can also read the 文庫版あとがき - it's an extra 6 pages.

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@novel token maybe the above format might be more clear?

serene estuary
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Yes, having the end point every week like that is a lot more clear! Thanks!

errant wren
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The other way is to look at the original post and go “there is no week 1” 😝 . As really all I did was separate out the start date and then fix the week numbers.

tiny ocean
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Just read the first few pages! How convenient for me that I just learned the word 一軒家 shark_laugh

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Love it when stuff I study shows up out in the wild shark_backpack

slender dawn
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I'm done with the first deadline, that was surprisingly painless to read

errant wren
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I’m nearly done, just 5 more pages, but it’s nice that the speakers are labeled.

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This will definitely be more manageable with my kiddos, who are still making it difficult to get quality reading time. 🙏

tiny ocean
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I also finished the reading and I’m definitely intrigued! Looking forward to continuing on and also enjoying having the speakers labeled and having the floor plan in there pretty often so it’s easy to visualize.

novel token
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I opened it last night but I was exhausted yesterday from travelling (drove six hours to go visit a friend) so I kinda looked at it and went "you know what, maybe sleep"

Definitely going to start it today, though! I'm excited!!

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I also found having the floor plans really interesting when I was looking through it to get the page numbers - I feel like I'll be looking at them a lot

novel token
# serene estuary Yes, having the end point every week like that is a lot more clear! Thanks!

Noted, also - thanks for bringing this up. I was experimenting with a different format because I do seem to often get questions about what the schedule actually means (especially when I leave off a start date ...) lemme leave it the way it is for now, I want to try something when I get home and have my proper computer available again, maybe there's a way that I can solve both problems...

serene estuary
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I found it to be a very fast and easy read. Personally don’t enjoy horror/suspense stories all that much, but let’s see if it will become more to my taste later on

errant wren
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I don’t mind horror/suspense as long as it doesn’t get graphic. So hopefully it’ll be a nice PG-13 mystery.

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I might be in my 30s but I’m a wimp 😂

serene estuary
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Finished the 2nd week. I have to say, I personally get a bit annoyed by the bold text. It’s like it’s really trying to make sure the reader understands the important sentences it wants to stress. For me, it feels like it’s treating me like an idiot…I can very well grasp the important parts of a text by myself, thank you very much.

wanton rain
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Finished first week.
Ok, if this is how it's gonna go, my brain can twist it into an absolutely normal and hilarious story, no problem.
All I have to say to myself is "If me and my friends came up with a flat plan, gave it to ppl to work on and then made changes on the fly without ever looking at the plan again"
Easy

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Children's room on the second floor can be my migraine room, no problem

wanton rain
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Finished 2nd week
I see what Hii-chan means, but for me it felt like I'm supposed to be gasping on each bold phrase.
Like !!! Oh my God what if !! effect

Like in young people's fanfiction lol

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Have to say, the mousou chapter went not the way I expected it to go. ||I thought we're gonna talk about other ways to use kids without anyone seeing it /cough/||

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Now for real
||1. An expecting couple doesn't notice that there are no windows in the kid's room? Are you guys also used to having bomb shelters somewhere in the flat?
2. Yeah the innocent idea with mysterious space wouldn't fly - you'd have hole in the wall for future doors||

wanton rain
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Also who else just assumed Japanese houses have numerous baths and a bunch of windows for air? 😬

serene estuary
errant wren
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I haven't finished the week's reading, but I read most of the mousou stuff and my reaction was || What the, that escalated FAST. How does someone go from "hey this house is weird, the kid seems to be hidden" to "there's a crawl space to get to the other bathroom" to "oh they're using it to DO MURDER". At least as far as I've gotten it's just a wild theory, but if this ends up being the truth, I'm gonna be disappointed that the author just has their characters do very little investigation to magic-guess things||

wanton rain
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If that's what they are opening with I do wonder how it's going to continue lol

tiny ocean
errant wren
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Finished this week’s reading. It took me longer because of IRL but difficulty wise this is very pleasant.

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Without spoiling anything, I’m not sure what to think regarding the whole story. I need more chapters to see if I have more thoughts but I’m hoping there will be a good twist!

tiny ocean
tiny ocean
errant wren
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Don’t get me wrong I’m looking forward to doing a harder intermediate book again in the future, but a slightly easier intermediate book is very welcome 😄

wanton rain
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Got to "Difference" 差異
I have to say this week was hard to get through for me
Possibly because it was a bad match of 2 chapters - after "Reality" I didn't want to read it anymore
(The depth of my disappointment...)
But okay, let's see what's next..

serene estuary
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I just read up to 変化.
||I wonder if it stays like that. They do a completely groundless guess and it ends up being true somehow or if there will be a twist that changes everything.||
I didn’t really wanna read the book in the first place and so far, it hasn’t managed to spur up any interest in me, but at least it’s a fast and easy read each week 😅

serene estuary
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I| Ialso gotta wonder ||how much money do you get for killing a person? I mean, building an entire house is quite expensive and if they build 1 house for 1 murder and move to a new house afterwards, that can’t be possible to earn money by that.
Also, how old is the child? They had to be at least around 8 years old for the first murder since it should be impossible for an even younger child and if the next murder is 3 years later, at one point they should be too grown up to squeeze through narrow passages. Also, was that child hidden from birth on? If not, doesn’t someone notice that they’re not attending school?||
Maybe all these things will be addressed later on or maybe I’m just overthinking things, but it feels like it’s full of plot holes so far.

slender dawn
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sorry if i recommended something bad, i thought the beginning was interesting :/ i need to catch up still, sometimes life gets in the way

serene estuary
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Don’t worry! You didn’t know the book either. Do let us know how you like it once you read a bit further. Maybe it’s really interesting for some people, just not to my personal taste.

slender dawn
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okay, i will ^^

errant wren
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I don’t know if I’m really keen on the story of the book, but at least I don’t dislike it. It’s not amazing but it’s not terrible. But at least it’s short and I’ve noticed there’s been a mix of grammar including newspaper-literary, and humble/honorific. So it’s fun to parse it for grammar recognition.

novel token
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Yeah, don't worry - this is what book club is about! We try new things, sometimes we like them, sometimes we don't, but we always have something to talk about 🙂

I'm a week behind because of moving house, but I'll catch up pretty quick, and (as usual) I'm the outlier in that I'm actually kind of enjoying it?

I see what Hii-chan means about the bolding, though I'm finding it's not bothering me that much? I get the feeling that this is supposed to be emulating a type of document, though I'm definitely not familiar enough with the conventions in Japanese to know what kind (and it is a bit unclear - it seems like it's just a reporter's personal notes, though tbh if that's the case I would have expected like ... underlining? Or highlighting maybe? Though I don't know if underlining is a thing in Japanese like this .... if it's a police statement with interjections for interview transcripts and diagrams, then I'd expect the interview transcripts to have titles. Stuff like that). Either way, even if I'm giving it too much credit, being able to say "oh, this is clearly emulating something for Style; I just don't know what exactly it's emulating" is helping to make the bolding not annoying (and it's also fun to be like "OK, but what did they not bold? What didn't this narrator think was relevant enough to emphasise?")

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As for the story, I'm definitely earlier on than others, but I'm in. I can't say it's going on my list of "most complex and intriguing stories I've ever read", unless something changes dramatically in the next little while, but there's enough meat there that I'm interested in seeing where the author is going, at least.

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Most of all, though, I'm just having fun reading something that's not a traditional narrative-style book and even if it ends up not being a blow-me-away-good book, that alone is enough to make me feel like it's worth reading

errant wren
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Even though my criticism was that it was neither good nor bad, I do want to state that I am enjoying it for all the other aspects including having a little bit of a reading break to take a look at floor plans.

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And funny enough as I was reading I thought “when will I ever need to know the word for floor plan ever again”, and what do you know a few weeks later I was watching a video on JP101 (even though I rarely ever watch videos there, so pure happenstance) and it just so happened to be there! So I can’t say it hasn’t been useful 😂

slender dawn
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Thanks guys ^^ I appreciate the kind words, I felt kind of down about it if I suggested something bad haha. I'll have time to read the coming days so I'll update my opinion on it ^^

novel token
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Don't worry at all - I've suggested some stuff before that turned out to be pretty universally loathed (and that I had actually read before ... just ... at the time I'd been too bad at Japanese to concentrate on the quality of the story; I'd been taking it kinda one sentence at a time). So when we reread it here everyone was Unimpressed and I was like 'oh yeah this actually is kinda bad now I actually think about it' 😛

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But it's a book club - we're not here to read things that are good all the time, we're here to get encouraged to read things we might not otherwise have picked up, and to practice actually having to express our opinions about the books to other people

tiny ocean
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I’ve been enjoying the book too! I don’t know that I’d say I’m on the edge of my seat, trying to read as fast as possible to see what happens, but I’m interested and like others have been saying, it’s fun to read a book that’s so different from the last few we’ve done. Also, this is apparently a really well known book in Japan so I’m happy we’re reading it so I’ll know what it’s all about.

slender dawn
slender dawn
slender dawn
novel token
errant wren
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Also it’s still so early in the book.

slender dawn
slender dawn
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well i'm done with the second week. its pretty simple language wise which is neat, otherwise i'd never be able to catch up. i can get through a chapter a day if i have the time to read and understand most of it without having to think too much which is nice. its easier compared to whatelse i've read in text form

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for the book itself i do like the mystery aspect and it makes me curious to know more, but we have very little characterization which is fine but if it keeps like this its going to be something i read, enjoy and then forget about it if not for being one of the first novels i read in japanese and the first i finish likely

slender dawn
novel token
novel token
# serene estuary I| Ialso gotta wonder ||how much money do you get for killing a person? I mean, ...

This is also an excellent point, and one I was wondering as well - ||I was assuming they do several murders per house, if that really is the strategy - I know that contract killing can be really lucrative, but I'm not sure it's new-house-every-2-years lucrative ... especially if you burn down the houses as you go and they never end up being sold on||

||As for the kid, I'm honestly kind of waiting for that to be a twist. After all, as you say, kids have a limited window of being both large enough to commit a murder and small enough to fit into crawlspaces. I'm waiting for there to be like ... more than one kid, or the kid to not be a kid at all, or something. After all ... it's not that they know a kid is involved, it's just that the room in the house plan is marked 'kid's room'.||

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I also don't know if it's significant that ||the kid's room in the earlier house is just separated from the rest of the house by the parents' bedroom, but the later house has a full on like ... double door airlock situation going on? Feels like an escalation but I might be reading too much into things||

patent vigil
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Just got caught up now that I‘m back from my trip and I‘m enjoying myself. The book is fun! Not in a „seriously engaging with it“ but in a „what was the author smoking“ kind of way. It definitely escalated very quickly and I‘m kinda curious to see what crazy theory they pull out next

errant wren
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Yes, it has the “B movie” feeling 😂

wanton rain
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Caught up!
Unpopular opinion - I wouldn't say this book is easier than the other books we had here.
Probably because I don't get any comedy relief moments so it's just a weird mix of dossier and tension (?) that I'm not invested in.

On the upside I'm pretty comfortable with some repetitive vocabulary now, like 可能性
Thought saitama will forever be X玉 in my head 🤣

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It's definitely becoming easier to read but God, can we just have soooomething for my internal teenager? Like ||the older kid is actually a vampire and the parents are just helping him eat food and avoid sun?||

tiny ocean
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I definitely thought we were in for something || supernatural at the beginning. Now I’m not so sure but time will tell lol I will say I’m kinda waiting for the main people to be wrong about something. So far it seems like they are speculating a lot without actually having much concrete stuff to go off of (unless I’ve missed something which is also possible). Like, we have a weird house yes and some weird, seemingly related murders, and one person who said she saw a child she didn’t know her neighbors had. All weird but I still feel like the main person coming up with the theories is just kind of.. coming up with stuff? lol so we’ll see if it all ends up actually being true or if some stuff could be misdirections or something. ||

wanton rain
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Oh I absolutely hope they are wrong lol
||If only because if investigation could be done by two ppl sitting on a chair and coming up with udeas, we don't need police||

errant wren
tiny ocean
errant wren
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Feels like we didn’t really talk much about last week’s chapter but I actually really enjoyed it. || for once it didn’t feel like they magicked into figuring out something, it made sense that they would figure out the guy wasn’t married and would be suspicious. And I really enjoyed the sister’s backstory, because it being lived (assuming we believe it) means it’s also not magicked into existence. It felt fairly real and I was pretty invested finding out more||

tiny ocean
slender dawn
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Caught up with week 4, I have some time to read this week and next so hopefully I can catch up fully

patent vigil
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Btw I‘m a little confused about how to read the schedule shark_seenoevil does wk 7 (8th) mean: read that part until the 8th? Or: read this part during the week of the 8th?

slender dawn
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I'll give my impressions once I'm fully caught up but I do like it so far and I'm very thankful its simple enough language wise to read 40 chapters in a day

... also now that I think of it, it does feel really cool to be able to sit down and read a novel in a third language, even if I have to look up a lot of words ^^

slender dawn
errant wren
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I ended up screenshotting it and saving it to my phone in an album just for it because every time I read the original I get confused again

patent vigil
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Ah so I am a week behind shark_laugh

errant wren
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I went and made bookmarks in BW with the due dates as the label 😎 now it’s easy for me to tell

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Caught up on the reading due 09/15. My goodness that was something. || If I’m picking up on these not so subtle hints properly, there may be some cult activity going on. Makes you wonder which family members are aware, which are actively still involved, and what the criteria is for the victims||

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Also at this point we are around 60% done. That means it’s probably about to ramp up riiiiiight? 😄 I’m kind of excited.

novel token
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I caught up this week, so it's time for me to go back and read all the spoilers 😆

errant wren
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I didn’t realized that if a note was added to a highlight, it would show up on the list view without having to tap into it (not sure why I called it a label, it’s called a note in the app)

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Also, while I have been doing ok suffering without lookups and it’s been great for my retention, I’m definitely glad I got it working on my e-reader. It’s not as smooth as on (a working) iOS app, but it being less smooth is a good thing - that’ll detract me from relying on it too much and hopefully I will only use it when I absolutely need it.

novel token
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||ngl I was wondering for a while if 片淵さん was involved in the actual killings somehow... I knew something was up, though I was expecting it to be a bit more direct than one of the killers being her sister. If the killers did as they said they did after all||

errant wren
novel token
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And yeah, ||I'm also on team there has to be something else to it. I know at the beginning I was also expecting a supernatural twist because, like. The narrator is an occult reporter! That's how he got into this in the first place! Surely there must be something to feed back into that... or maybe that's just me grabbing at straws||

wanton rain
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It's hilarious to me how I'm doing the exact amount of lookups I do in Honzuki here
Being bad with kanji doesn't have "easy" vocabulary as a concept.
But I wish the names would always have furigana. Specifically miss "Piece abyss"

patent vigil
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At least they have furigana the first time they show up shark_seenoevil
I usually mark the names the first time they show up (on ereader) or write them on a piece of paper that I use as a bookmark for physical books

errant wren
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Sadly, being good or bad with kanji doesn't change that we still have to learn like 40k words to truly be fluent. Until then, we'll always have to do some lookups.

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But theoretically, the more common words should at least make things easier.

slender dawn
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anyways i passed my ATLS cert and now i finally have free time to study japanese again, having dinner w/ my bfs parents tonight then i have 4 days off where i'm really hoping i can finally catch up ugh

wanton rain
novel token
# wanton rain It's hilarious to me how I'm doing the exact amount of lookups I do in Honzuki h...

I think I'm never going to refer to her as anything but Piece Abyss again now shark_galaxybrain

And ngl as soon as I realised that the characters didn't always have furigana on their names, I immediately made myself a note on my tablet of their pronunciations so that I could quickly check without having to search back through the book for their first appearance. I kinda stopped checking it, though, and started just referring to them internally as [mumblemumble]-san

serene estuary
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Yeah, that’s what I usually do as well 😅.
I’m several weeks behind, gotta catch up soon.

wanton rain
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Mumblemumble-san is the way to go lol

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I have to say the content of the last couple of weeks (You-chan) was very exciting to read.

novel token
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I gotta say ||I have passed the main discussion scene, not ruling out that it might become a plot point later, but I'm wondering if the grandfather really does have a 'bad leg' after all or if he's just kind of staying in the room so there's always someone there to hear anything going on?||

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And I'm definitely (spoilers not specific to most recent chapters, but for general plot so far) ||still very curious as to the reason why the family is Doing All This (if they really are, and it's not going to all turn out to be something equally creepy but wildly different). Like, it's a family tradition, clearly, so ... who do they associate with? Who chooses the victims, and by what criteria? Why kids? Like, rules of fiction are rules of fiction, if the book says it works then that's on me and my suspension of disbelief. But ... what happens to the kids after they're too old/large to fit into the hidden corridors in these murder houses anymore? Do they kill them and get another one? Seems inefficient - after all, how long does brainwashing and training each kid take? Because most children do not come as accomplished assassins out of the box, so to speak - you gotta invest some time in training anad behaviour modification, and be sure that the kid is not going to start trying to attract attention from outside by making lots of noise inside the house, or whatever. The story so far seems to be positing a group of traumatised children that are 100% reliable, 100% on board with their own confinement, or at least 100% convinced that any disobedience will be futile, and 100% not inclined to desperate actions, even under intense stress. That seems like a lot to gamble on tbh.||

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Like, I'm sure we'll get answers to at least some of that, and as I say, if the book says "don't think about it" then I'll roll with that.

I just also really want to know.

wanton rain
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(That don't know things could be different)

wanton rain
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I have just finished the book.
I felt like I didn't like it more than everyone else here and then it just became so much better starting with You-chan.

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I've literally picked it up on a plane to catch up to the schedule and ended up finishing it instead of getting that sleep

errant wren
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Are we already at the point of finishing this?

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No, guess you were so engrossed you read ahead 😄

slender dawn
tiny ocean
slender dawn
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Almost caught up and honestly I'm just really happy and excited that I can read an actual novel in japanese. It has become easier and easier the further I've read too and I'm just really happy with my progress haha

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I do agree that the book has become more fun starting with You-chan too ^^

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Even if I never disliked it

novel token
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Yeah, I need to catch up (I'm about a week behind) but I am looking forward to seeing how the ending goes, and where the twists are (that I'm sure are coming simply because that's kind of what the genre does not because I have strong evidence for what they are). You-chan is definitely where things started to feel a bit more .... personal? I guess?

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A bit less like a couple of guys just sitting in a room making up scary stories for each other, and where it started to kind of get layers?

novel token
# wanton rain So basically kids with no friends and no internet

||I mean, there's definitely an element of that, but also, more psychological distress than the average lonely kid without internet 😛 Which does change things. Besides, we know that the Kataburi family (modern) were afraid for their own son after he was born, and that the imprisoned kids had to be able to enter the main house in order to commit the murders, which strongly implies that they a) had knowledge of other family members, and b) could hear things like family discussions and the TV, so I doubt it's going to be perfect separation from the outside world, which means that even if some kids are likely to just sort of give up and do what they're told because they think it's Their Purpose, not all of them are going to. And that's more my point: not that it's unthinkable that any individual kid would be able to be kept like that and for nothing to go wrong. That would absolutely be a possible reaction. More that I'm skeptical that all kids for several generations of this practice are like that - at that point, the odds of having one who reacts badly, whose brainwashing just didn't take hold the same way, who has the wrong personality for it to work like that, get more and more likely.||

slender dawn
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Caught up ^^ That ||historical|| part was definitely more challenging to read than the rest of the book so far

slender dawn
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...and I finished the rest of the book too. It helps to have time off work plus having a cold so I'm too tired to do anything else :p

Anyways, it was fun ^^ I thought I would struggle more than I did but at times I did too. I could tell too I got more proficient/used to reading as I kept reading so that was nice, plus going back to reading something else I after this for a bit I can definitely tell I improved haha. So thats nice ^^ I wont say I understood every nuance or detail (I didnt) but thats for the future :p

Note to self though: I have to start writing down names because wow was that hard to keep track of especially when I couldnt remember the pronounciation.

Anyways, it was a fun book. Not my favorite by I enjoyied it ^^ (spoilers for entire book) ||I thought it was interesting at first with the mystery setup, but then it got more and more interesting as the Youchan part started and it felt like there became a bit more emotional with the possibility of the sister being in danger and how that would turn out. I liked the bittersweet (idk if this is the right english word) ending and the part where the sisters husband decided to kill that guy and save the imprisoned child, it was a good moment and tied things up nicely

What I sort of didnt like however is how passive the protagonist were. Like it felt like they were just observing everything? And like it works, I just way prefer stories where the protagonists are more involved.||

errant wren
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Honestly for the names, I kind of would just remember one kanji and just be like "Mumble mumble-[reading of that one kanji]".

errant wren
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I’m a tiny bit behind, just about a week, but I should be able to catch up

wanton rain
slender dawn
patent vigil
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Finally caught up and finished the book.
||I didn't like the ending. Or the book as a whole actually :(
I thought most of the setup was kind of crazy and I was hoping for some sort of plot twist where it was revealed that either there was a different reason for these things or that there was an ordinary explanation and this would be commentary on the writer's imagination running too wild. I didn't like that it just turned out they were correct about basically everything just from looking at the floor plan; at the same time everything was so contrived and implausible and the "hinting" at the end just felt like a cheap way to keep a sense of mystery after that huge exposition dump.
So yeah, definitely not the book for me. I agree with the notion that the protagonists were very passive too, though this seems to be by design since it is supposed to be an "online article", so a report after the fact.||

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As for stats, my ereader says it took me just under three and a half hours to read the whole thing, if anyone else has a number or an estimate of how long it took them I would love to hear it

slender dawn
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it took me maybe 10-20 hours I think, definitely went faster by the end than early on

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also shame you didnt like it :/ but i can totally see why

serene estuary
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I’m currently catching up, just at the part with ようちゃん and I have yet another logic question…
||how is it supposed to be possible for another child to carry him through the passageway to their room without waking him up? Like, weight-wise carrying a child that is about has heavy as you AND not rousing anyone else and not waking him up?? Will that be “explained”? ||

novel token
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I finished it on the long train ride yesterday! I absolutely took more than three hours for it, but I don't think I have exact stats? I think it's probably about like 10 or 12 hours, given I think I finished each weekly section in about 45 mins - an hour?

novel token
novel token
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OK, so overall I actually did enjoy quite a bit of it. Though I think the main enjoyment I got out of it was reading something that's outside my usual genre and choices, and getting to sink my teeth into what makes it tick, more than the story itself, if that makes sense?

||Honestly, I kind of classify this in my head as like ... this is going to sound more derogatory than I mean it, but I'm not sure there's a better way to express this ... the horror version of a soap opera?

I see it kind of similar to a lot of the True Crime stuff, where a lot of the purpose of the story is not so much about solving the mystery (though it's not not about solving the mystery), but about kind of thrilling yourself with a story that's horrifying, but has juuuuuuuust enough plausibility in it that you can be like "oh, but could that happen? Could that happen near me? Could that happen to me?"

Much in the same way that a soap opera isn't so much about the characters being realistic as it is about getting to microdose on other people's kinda wild interpersonal conflict that you don't have to be involved in or stressed out by. The melodrama is the point, much the same way that here, the fact that it is so messed up is the point.

All of which I can get behind - I'm a horror enjoyer, I can get behind the desire to just open a book and stare into the abyss for a bit. But I think the thing here is that like. There's not much in it other than that? If you're not kind of into that thrill of opening the book and getting the next reveal, seeing how it can get more messed up, seeing how this upsetting detail ties into the whole, then ... well, the protagonists are a bit cardboard and they don't really have any conflict between them to speak of, except for like one page where Kurihama-san is suspicious of Kataburi-san but that's over almost immediately and comes to nothing. The story isn't any more deep or detailed than it needs to be to set up the next reveal, and there are no details that go unexplained or are just there to add to the Experience. You're either in it to get that sensation of having the story revealed and going "Oh, that's awful! What else did they do?? I must know!" or there's really not much in it for you.||

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||Again, as I said, I did enjoy reading it, for the most part. I am not immune to the compulsion of the escalating tension curve. But I definitely think there's not a lot in it that will make me want to go back for seconds, you know? It's very one-and-done, there's not much under the surface to explore, and it's probably not going to like. Hang around in my mind like a lot of really good fiction does.

Would I recommend this to another person? 100% I know people I'd recommend this to. I know people who'd eat this up with a spoon.

Do I think it's well-written? Well, inasmuch as I can tell, not being a particularly fluent speaker/reader, I think it's probably quite good? Probably not like groundbreaking prose, but I get the sense that it has a good grasp of pacing and tension, and the prose is serviceable enough to do what it does.

But yeah, fundamentally I think I'm not 100% in on the core draw of this book, and I think there's not a lot of depth to it outside that One Thing, so ... interesting! But I probably won't be grabbing the sequel or anything.||

errant wren
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Oh crap this coming week is our last week, I guess I need to finish soon so I can participate everyone’s reviews and spoilers

patent vigil
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I like that we‘ve all just agreed on giving up on their names

novel token
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Mumble-mumble-san is perfectly descriptive 😆

patent vigil
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For the record I think it‘s Kurihara and Katafuchi? Kurihara is a pretty common name I think

novel token
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Kurihara that's it!!

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I remembered the Kuri but was shaky on the second character

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And yeah, I thought I saw a dakuten on the ふ in Katafuchi? Or maybe that's just stuck in my head. The rest of that name was just a brain glitch though, not sure what I was thinking there

serene estuary
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Finally finished as well!!

errant wren
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I finished 🙂

Overall, I think what I enjoyed most was that it was good practice, especially in polite Japanese as since most of the interaction ||was between adult strangers, there was a good amount of polite Japanese used. I also really liked the concept of the house layouts and the overall idea of the story, such as the background lore of why things came to be, and I liked what happens in the end. ||.

I definitely would still recommend this book as someone's first or second intermediate novel, because it is at a great difficulty point for that, and that would be its selling point.

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This would be totally the kind of story I would be into....if it were written by someone else. Now, I know some people find reading criticism to be a downer, so I'll mark it all as spoiler:

||In writing, it's pretty typical to have exposition dumps. This is either a "dumb" character, so someone needs to explain things to them. Or it's a hypersmart character who feels the need to explain things to others who aren't dumb, but can't grasp concepts. There are other forms of explainer content that allow things to be understood by a wide audience. When something is written well, this should feel natural without feeling like the author doesn't trust the audience. It should be a good amount, but not an extreme amount. There is also a balance on how to do exposition via what is narrated/said directly (literally a person explaining things) versus doing exposition indirectly by helping the audience come to that conclusion through context (also known as "show, don't tell").

This book is a perfect example, to me, of how to do this badly.

The amount of times that seemingly smart people seem to reconfirm what they just said, right after a big reveal, honestly kills the tension and suspense, like it's a big reset button. The constant bolding and the use of comma-emphasizing, even though it was something rather obvious, was quite annoying. Everything was Tell, very little Show, as there are convenient letters to be found detailing everything. Even the old-time letter. Yes it wasn't written by modern standards, but it also wasn't written like it's from hundreds of years in the past. It was a challenge but readable. I wouldn't expect it to have a full modern translation after that and then to also have the characters summarize via their discussions, showing the author has 0 trust in the audience.

And almost no emotional depth to any characters as we simply just hear about the ones that matter most, instead of interacting with them||

serene estuary
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I agree that language-wise it’s a good book for early intermediate. Story-wise I personally wouldn’t recommend it to others

patent vigil
slender dawn
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i mean, if i look at bestsellers in my own country they're not too different :p people like these kinds of mystery stories

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i dont know if its cultural or

patent vigil
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Germans also love their mystery stories (so maybe I have high standards?) but this one was just incredibly flat

slender dawn
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i dont think it was inredibly flat, it was more interesting than the police stuff popular here imo, but anyways point being that being a bestseller isnt exactly a guarantee of literary excellence

errant wren
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Can’t say that I really look at the bestsellers here anymore, but in the past there have definitely been some where I was like “????”

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I think this book would be better if it were adapted to TV. (Obviously depending on who adapts it). It’d be pretty easy to take some of the really good ideas it has and flesh them out.

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I used to read a lot of mystery and thriller stuff as a kid, and watch a lot of horror/suspense movies (American and Japanese), so my expectations in this genre are definitely too high.

patent vigil
slender dawn
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yes theres some kind of movie/tv adaption but i forgot which

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i do have a soft spot for mystery stuff and tend to really like them when theyre good, and still enjoy them when theyre ok at best

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for japanese stuff i really love ミステリと言う勿れ, but theres only a manga and tv show+movie afaik

errant wren
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To be fair, it's not like I would know how to write this better. It definitely had so much potential, but something is missing.

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I've read worse though 😄 . I'll rate it B-. Good foundation, could use some improvements. I hope the TV adaptation used that as a chance to flesh it out. (A+ as a JP learner book though)

tiny ocean
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Finally finished the book myself as well 🙂 gonna write out my thoughts before I go read everyone else’s.

Overall, I liked it. While the way it was told didn’t pull me in as much as it could have, since it was pretty short and easy to read I was entertained enough to want to keep reading. If it had been longer or more difficult it might not have felt worth it since I found the story interesting but not edge-of-my-seat gotta get to the next chapter now.

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Now for some more specifics:
|| I still don’t love how so much of the book was Kurihara basically just making wild speculations. I think when mystery stories do things like Sherlock deducing that “someone is divorced because they have an indent on their ring finger and therefore used to wear a wedding ring but recently took it off” it works better than how things were speculated on in this book. Like, sure, is it technically still ridiculous that someone sees someone’s phone is scratched and is like, “ah, they must come home drunk a lot and try to plug in their charger while intoxicated” - yeah, also silly. But idk, that stuff seems to work better for me. Maybe because with a lot of other mystery stories crimes have usually already been committed (and the reader is aware of that) before the speculation starts, whereas this book seemed to start with - “huh, yup that’s some weird architecture. Definitely must be a child going around murdering people” before there was any evidence of that whatsoever. Anyway, that’s probably my biggest complaint with the book. ||

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|| As for the mystery itself, I think it was good I just wish some of the most interesting parts (the last part of the book) weren’t all part of a letter that had already happened. I do think this kind of piecing things together via letters and floor plans idea is cool but for it to work properly I think it might have been better if the different mystery elements got split up into different pieces and kind of fed to us in a different way. For example, maybe the book starts in a similar way with a weird floor plan and someone is like “oh maybe there’s a ghost living there, wouldn’t that be funny? I’ll write about it on my blog” and then we still have someone (or several someones) reaching out saying the story resonated but maybe each with smaller pieces of the mystery. Like, someone found an old letter from one of their ancestors talking about similar secret passages and teaching a child to use them in some kind of cryptic language or something and someone else reaches out about a strange layout their neighbors house had or something. Basically, just a structure that would make the speculation at the beginning feel more grounded in clues getting picked up bit by bit and letting some of the reveals happen through the characters more actively piecing things together instead of one character just basically telling the whole story at the end. ||

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I’m glad I read the book though, I think the concept was interesting, both with the house layouts being so integral to the storytelling but also the ultimate story of what happened. Could use some polishing imo but still was happy to read it.

I definitely need to write myself character lists though for my next book. The ending took me longer than it needed to because I kept forgetting which mumble-mumble-san was which when they started really diving into the family lore and adding more characters lol