lapis gustBOT
Book Link
Cover: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1734077733i/218671839.jpg
ID: 683eb9d229074c7751000400
Announcement: #buddy-reads message
eternal swan
lapis gustBOT
@faint patrol,@charred yoke,@teal oak,@eternal swan,@light pewter,@proven portal,@west narwhal,@light pine,@upbeat trench,@south roost,@lilac cove,@carmine wolf,@fleet matrix,@fringe mountain,@balmy oyster,@sacred bone,@broken grail
Hello everyone and welcome to the buddy read for Strange Houses - a spiritual companion to Strange Pictures.
Time to get your detective hats on as we delve into another mystery with a twist. This time the mystery involves 'a sinister conspiracy concealed within the house's warped and unsettling floor plans.'
Optional discussion questions:
🏠 Do you have a haunted house story, or have you experienced anything eerie whilst being in a house?
🕵️ Do you think you'll be able to solve the mystery before the end of the book?
As this book is newly released the buddy read is currently running for three months but I may be open to extensions if people are struggling to get a hold of a copy of this.
Happy reading!
teal oak
🏠 // i allegedly saw my dead grandpa when i was younger. my dad always speaks about my grandpa (it was an abusive relationship but he doesn’t seem to think so) so i know a lot about him but he never really described his physical appearance. also my dad is a man of science, he doesn’t really believe in all of this, i told him like “oh dad there’s a man in the living room,” and he was like “what?” and i basically described my grandpa to a tee with his white tank top, traditional sarung, hat, and coffee (my dad never told me any of this prior to it) he was very freaked out and to this day it’s the only ghost story he moderately believes in
🕵🏽♀️ // no LOL
fringe mountain
🏠 apart from me having my own personal poltergeist, not really!
🕵️ no way 
usually i do but i never expect myself to be this big brained
i just saw my bookstore has this ready for pickup after all, so i will definitely join this BR ^-^
south roost
🏠 I’ve moved A LOT all my life and I remember this apartment we’d been in when I’d been like 4-6 which was haunted. I personally don’t remember experiencing much except for this wardrobe door that’d just keep swinging with no one touching it and we siblings would just laugh it off (we were a lil off in our heads I suppose). Many incidents in that apartment like hearing someone breathing near the store room (wasn’t any of us) or the front door being wide open in the middle of the night. Everyone just laughed stuff off or didn’t pay much heed to anything rather than getting spooked and most of the incidents that happened got discussed after we moved apartments and found out that apparently the next tenants in that apartment had gotten slapped 
As a teen, I was once visiting someone in the area (a different apartment building) and was told that the apartment is kinda infamous for no one has ever occupied it for more than 3 months (we did, we stayed 3 years 
)
Anyhoo, I have my happiest and clearest childhood memories from when I’d lived there so always remember the place fondly
🕵️ If it’s anything like the previous book then I might halfway through but I’m more interested in just enjoying the ride
Also, my book should be here soon! (I’d placed a hold right after I’d finished Strange Pictures and I’m so glad I did now 
)
west narwhal
balmy oyster
Firstly, I love this question. Reading everyone's experiences is a great way to kick off this BR (and get the chills).
🏠 Not a particularly creepy one, but it is authentic. Where I come from, the day of your wedding, you get sent off to stay at your in-laws home for a couple of days (I'm from India, it's normal). Anyway, my in-laws are all late risers, and I'm the opposite (think Anna from Frozen, "the sky is awake, so I'm awake!"). So I woke up a bit after dawn to pin drop silence, and decided to make myself some coffee and roam the house a bit.
I found myself in the drawing room, where my father-in-law keeps his floor to ceiling bookshelves, and started perusing, because I had at least 3 hours to kill. I heard this really loud thump from the ceiling, and then heavy footsteps. And it just continued for a while, it actually got loud enough that I wondered how everyone was sleeping through this. They live in a 2-storey bungalow, so I went upstairs, knocked what I thought was my new sister-in-law's door (she's a doctor, hence, early riser), and asked her if she could please not make too much noise, and that people were trying to sleep. I heard footsteps walking to the door, and then the noise immediately stopped.
Eventually, everyone woke up and I brought up the incident during breakfast. My father-in-law just laughed and said, "oh, that's not her bedroom, it's an empty store. There's no one there except our resident spirit. Don't mind him, he just likes to move things about, and he keeps odd hours. He doesn't mean any harm, though. If you ask him nicely, he'll keep it down." I still hear this dude just meandering, every time I visit them. Guess he's the only other early riser there.
🕵️♀️ I don't know, I'm not sure I even want to. I'm very much in this to be surprised by the twists!
upbeat trench
Hello everyone and welcome to the buddy read for Strange Houses - a spiritual co...
charred yoke
Hello everyone and welcome to the buddy read for Strange Houses - a spiritual co...
balmy oyster
Here we go!
Prologue:|| Okay, I'm not an architect, but I only see three weird things about this floor plan. The placement of the only toilet on the second floor is attached to the child's bedroom, without any general access. The central placement of the child's bedroom, in the first place, is slightly weird for some reason. And there seems to be a cupboard or something attached to the kitchen that's lined in bold, does it make it special?|| We'll see.
balmy oyster
Chapter 1: || Okay, so clearly, I missed almost everything 'off' about that floor plan. The deductions they drew about the murder house and the role of a child in dismembering their victims bodies seemed really abrupt, to me. Also, what I thought was a closet turned out to be a dead space.😅 I don't know how to read floor plans.||
I didn't realise how short this book is, it's not even 200 pages. I think I'll probably be finished with it today!
eternal swan
Hello everyone and welcome to the buddy read for Strange Houses - a spiritual co...
I can’t really say much at all here because both of my answers are just no
balmy oyster
Can I also just say that I really appreciate that the floor plans they're discussing are included every few pages, throughout the book? It's so convenient! This is a problem I've sometimes had with high fantasy books. The 'map' is always on the first page. Then they start discussing a region, and I have to keep flipping to the first page for context. It's exteremely annoying if you happen to be reading an ebook.
teal oak
i‘ll probably be reading it on my e-reader so that‘s something i‘m not looking forward to 
balmy oyster
Oh, this book is really well structured. I read the ebook.
And the entire plot revolves around floor plans.
The author has added them every few pages, so it's super easy to keep track of. You'll be fine!
west narwhal
ohh thats good to know! I liked that in Strange Pictures already, those pictures were involved every few pages and it was really well done for an ebook
balmy oyster
Chapter 2: || Immediately suspicious of the informant. How can your spouse go to visit a friend, stay overnight, without you knowing any of the details? Probably just me being suspicious of every other charcater in this genre of books, but still. Too many episodes of Criminal Minds leads me to believe that the left hands of the victims might be trophies, but could be something else.||
Chapter 3: || Murder house no. 3, it would seem. Or chronologically, I guess it would actually be the original murder house? This mystery somehow drew me in much more than the ruminations over the floor plans of different homes. Maybe it's because one of the main characters was personally involved? But also, hacking off a small child's body a few feet away from the sleeping mother? Particularly savage, even by murderer standards.||
balmy oyster
Finished!
|| I'm not sure why I was expecting a different ambience from the novel, than the one that I got. It felt more cool logic-driven, looking in from the outside, Miss Marple mystery. I haven't read the author's other book, but I'm told that one was a horror mystery, while this book is just a mystery. The writing style was definitely new for me, it read like a screenplay for a theatre performance. ||
|| While I wouldn't classify this as horror at all, I really liked that the story kept me wondering, guessing, and examining all the maps through each chapter. It was really fun, and had me second guessing myself quite a bit. I will admit, I was suspicious of the mother calling her daughter, more so of the fact that she'd just share this intensely horrific family secret with a random stranger. Particularly when she knows he's a journalist. ||
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It's such a short read, and I finished it in one go, basically.
I'm genuinely considering reading Strange Pictures. If anyone here has read that one, would love some general (spoiler free) reviews! What did you think of it?
teal oak
I'm genuinely considering reading *Strange Pictures*. If anyone here has read th...
we did a buddy read of it https://discord.com/channels/811077227449286667/1351097510650839040!
balmy oyster
we did a buddy read of it https://discord.com/channels/811077227449286667/135109...
Awww, I missed it!
Oh well, I'm still going to read it, I think.
I love horror (even though I scare pretty easily), so I'm looking forward to it.
west narwhal
Prologue
|| huh okay I dont see too many strange things here. It seems a bit weird that the childrens room is only accessible through another bedroom. And the toilet upstairs is only accessible through the childrens room. And I wonder why two rooms are called "bed room" and one is specifically "childrens room". If that is a cultural thing or a translation thing, or just to tell us that a child slept in one room and the others are unidentified (and probably adults)?
but still it might just be a slightly bad planned house, I have seen weird floor plans, with walk-through rooms and showers in the kitchen so idk idk :D ||
balmy oyster
Oh-kay ... Setting my novel aside to ask about the place with a shower in the kitchen. Are we sure there was nothing suspect about that family?🤔
west narwhal
Chapter 1
|| oookay I didnt see that some rooms didnt have windows, well yep, that is weird :D
The whole "this is a contract killer house and they have a hidden killer child who walks through secret passageways" was a bit.. uuuhm? I think the fact that this room might have been used to lock away a child would have been creepy enough 🙈 ||
west narwhal
Oh-kay ... Setting my novel aside to ask about the place with a shower in the ki...
it was a shared apartment for students in Berlin. High rent everywhere so sometimes it is just "take what you can get" and landlords get away with renting out shitty apartments. The people living there seemed nice enough. But well... who knows! :D
west narwhal
Chapter 1: || Okay, so clearly, I missed almost everything 'off' about that floo...
and it seems like we had pretty similar thoughts about the prologue and Chapter 1 :D
balmy oyster
Shared apartments for students are the weirdest, though, no matter where you go.
west narwhal
Chapter 2
|| oh huh seems like there is more off with that family than I first thought
I still think that having a secret killer child (if it is their own child or someone elses) is a bit over the top.
I would have never guessed anything along these lines just from the house plans. My idea would have just been "some houses are designed so weird, idk" :D ||
west narwhal
Chapter 3
|| all those windowless rooms and hidden passageways! So I guess I know what to look out for in the last chapter :D
and again it is just so weird that this family uses murder kids instead of just having adults kill other adults. Sounds like a child might easier be overpowered by an adult, even if that adult is drunk or asleep. I mean.. something could go easily wrong there, doesnt sound like the best plan, idk? ||
west narwhal
Chapter 4
|| oh this got a bit convoluted.And I am a little sad there was no floor plan in this chapter. I was so prepared to look for windowless rooms and secret passageways! ||
finished
|| I liked he gimmick of the house plans. Similar to "Strange Pictures", I just like this combination of the different media of pictures/language. Even though I am so bad at discovering those secrets myself. But tbh with what the solution was in this book, I would have never ever guessed that myself. Yeah, seeing that there is a childrens room without any windows could have been possible. But assuming that this child was a murderer and there is a murderous family cult with an incest story behind it.. uhm :D
I still mostly enjoyed it, it was an easy, fast read on a hot day like today. I think I liked "Strange Pictures" better though.
The epilogue with "maybe Keita was a prisoner, too" didnt hit me that hard emotionally, maybe because I didnt know him and only heard about him in a letter he maybe wrote, maybe didnt write.
So idk it was a fun time but I dont know if it will be memorable for me. ||
balmy oyster
finished
|| I liked he gimmick of the house plans. Similar to "Strange Pictures"...
|| Same! I feel like I didn't really feel anything for the victims, other than the cousin. Because one of the main characters was involved in the incident. I felt quite removed from the rest of it. But fun read, nevertheless. ||
proven portal
🏠 Okay so no judgement here- ...my father made my house a haunted house. Well my old house, we could no longer afford to live there after he died but he was 100% still there. He passed in the house and absolutely did not leave. He would hang around me when I'd be up all night, I felt him and also could smell cigarette smoke strongly when he'd be around. He would slam doors and my dog would constantly be looking at blank spaces. 
I'm sad that we had to leave him behind.
🕵️ I'm GONNA TRY 
light pine
Starting this tonight!
light pine
Chapter 1, 8%: ||that... escalated quickly 
||
light pine
Chapter 2: ||ugh, I'm not much invested unfortunately. There seems to be too much explaining going on and I think it kind of kills the mood.||
light pine
Chapter 3: ||So, theory time: Ayano disappeared because she was "adopted" by her grandparents and was trained to kill? And then she used another child for the same job but when she had her own child she decided to stop it? ||
light pine
Finished! I'll share my thoughts tomorrow!
fringe mountain
Chapter 1 ||LOL this one was weird, i don't remember strange pictures being this kind of 'just go with whatever' tbh
I did buy it up to the part where they might kill people and chop them up bit because i did think the layout was very weird but like that conclusion came out of NOWHERE for me 
and then they also found a chopped up corpse? how convenient 
||
light pine
So, back for my thoughts
||I didn't enjoy this one as much as Strange Pictures. I wasn't invested in any of the characters and the entire plot with the ritual/ sacrifice seemed far-fetched. It was also too "clinical" for my taste, meaning that it had a lot of explaining instead of letting us guess. It reminded me of a textbook instead of a mystery book. I'm also not very good at orientation, so reading those house plans was a headache || 2.75/5 
fringe mountain
chapter 2 ||how much money did these people have for their homicidal needs and wants LOL also this is really boring so far lol||
||also did they build it themselves?? which architect would be like „ah yes, the trapdoor in the child‘s room, that‘s normal and nothing we should think twice about“||
||I don‘t remember Strange Pictures being this explanation-heavy (even tho I guess it had to be and I‘m just misremembering) but my god, it‘s soo longwinded and we never SET UP THE MOOD to be invested in this sigh||
||also i cannot get over the idea of setting up the child as the 'actual' serial killer? and inviting people over just to kill them? and then chopping them up and flushing them down the toilet? (i think if i understood correctly) what kinda pipe drains to these people have wtf, my toilet cannot even handle five sheets of toilet paper||
I need to just shut up and finish reading LOL
I finished it! 1/5 stars ⭐️
||TO BE HONEST this book nearly already lost me as soon as Chapter 1 because it was so fast paced on explaining every single thing that it felt way too uninteresting to me and I wanna borrow Lioness‘ words on it definitely feeling too clinical in that sense. All the concepts were truly feeling like watching some dumb af conspiracy video 'essay' on youtube where they try to convince you everyone‘s a satanist and/or part of the illuminati LOL and I don‘t feel that way JUST because it got cult-ish but also because of the analytical and deeply serious way it was written and the batshit insane theories it tried to convey as plausible because nuh-uh
So yeah, big miss for me this time!||
fringe mountain
i only spent ~two hours with this book and I don‘t wanna sound dramatic but this definitely made my day significantly worse 
teal oak
oh man I apologise
fringe mountain
Are you Uketsu 👀 why would you apologise love 
light pewter
https://tenor.com/view/shocked-surprised-omg-oh-my-god-gif-16260557
JANA this cracked me up LMAO
eternal swan
starting this
eternal swan
Chapter 1
||I hope this guy will end up writing more books like these because I really like the concept. I saw this floor plan like 7 times in the first chapter which wasn’t necessary, but seems like they’re on to something 👀 excited to see where this will go||
eternal swan
chapter 2
||i think these theories are always super far fetched like they were in the first book as well, but it's intriguing too. just a little tired of seeing the floor plans on every second page lmao
i think the child being forced to kill isn't true and that's a little far fetched too. i wonder what happened to ayano that she suddenly had to move out and seemed stressed/paranoid though||
eternal swan
chapter 3
||they're even saying themselves that their theories are far fetched. if all of this was true, the three of them should seriously consider career changes 💀 the father being the killer is a cool theory but that feels like it would be too easy? like that's it? i'm kinda hoping there is more to these houses than just a sinister family and their motives of keeping the inheritance and their family name up. having an altar in your house is just creepy as fuck though||
eternal swan
Finished
||I think I preferred Strange Pictures overall, but I will say that creepy houses and buildings are right up my alley and I enjoyed this. It lost me towards the end and I was kind of rushing it since there were so many names that all blurred together at some point and it was hard to follow the exact events.
I still think it’s weird and unrealistic that Kurihara essentially predicted the entire thing right from the start and you can’t tell me that crawl spaces on floor plans automatically mean the family are criminals and that they’re using their child to murder people. But alas, that’s exactly what happened and I wish there would have been more of a twist to this and not this random character finding out everything beforehand||
balmy oyster
Finished
||I think I preferred Strange Pictures overall, but I will say that cre...
Agreed! ||The initial jump from "what's the point of this dead space" to "it's a murder house" was really sudden and came out f nowhere.||
lapis gustBOT
@faint patrol,@charred yoke,@teal oak,@eternal swan,@light pewter,@proven portal,@west narwhal,@light pine,@upbeat trench,@south roost,@lilac cove,@carmine wolf,@fleet matrix,@fringe mountain,@balmy oyster,@sacred bone,@broken grail
Hey everyone!
We're quickly approaching the halfway point in this buddy read. A few people have read this so far which is great but this is a friendly nudge to anyone who hasn't started it yet.
I'll be posting questions for those who have started/finished soon but I'm trying not to give myself spoilers.
For those who haven't started yet, have you managed to get hold of a copy? Show it off if you'd like :)
Happy reading!
teal oak
i haven't snagged a copy yet, planning to read this in august or september
faint patrol
I was looking at holds at the library and they're 2-3 months so I'm glad I bought a copy
The ebook is currently 99p if anyone doesn't have a copy!
light pewter
I still don't have a copy myself, Im sorry! Will try to update asap
faint patrol
There's still a while for this one yet so no need to rush /gen
proven portal
I have a copy and I'll be reading soon 
eternal swan
excited to hear you guys' opinions! esp if you read the first one as well
mint moon
my libby copy is available ><
teal oak
i'm dropping out of this br, sorry 
lilac cove
hallo i really want to read this!
light pewter
I gave up (and did some budgetting) and I'm going to have to go for the (95% cheaper) e-book version of this
I could only get the hardback (paperback is out of stock for the next 2 months) and I'm going to have to think brains over enjoyment for this one
eternal swan
I will say that they pictured the floor plans waaaay more often than needed in this one, so it’ll probably be more than fine
light pewter
light pine
I gave up (and did some budgetting) and I'm going to have to go for the (95% che...
I read the ebook as well, as spinch said I didn't feel the need to go back and check something becuase the plans were already there 😅
south roost
My hold's here! Starting this today
south roost
Ch.1
||Okay, this has been an interesting start! The child in the house being a murderer sounds ridiculous to me but excited to see where this goes ||
south roost
Ch.2
I don’t have many thoughts to share but things only keep getting interesting
south roost
Ch. 3
||I really don't buy the whole 'child murderer' narrative like I just can't . There's definitely something cult-ish going on though and I just can't picture what the whole situation could be and how they'd make this have a logical excuse because it's weird how things have been happening the same way through history||
south roost
Done! Sharing thoughts in just a bit
Full thoughts:
||I didn’t go into this one with sky-high expectations because I saw jana rating this 1 star and just the general vibes on this thread and I think that helped me like the book better for my expectations were already down low lol. The structure was still cool, like I still really like the overall concept and formatting with the images, the floor plans, the whole storytelling-through-layout thing is so unique and gives the whole book a really cool eerie vibe and that part totally worked for me.
But Ig what pulled me out a bit was the way the whole plot centred around kids being kind of groomed to be murderers?? And this whole cultish thing was fine and apparently the most ridiculous stories spun by the architect guy were mostly true? Also, I don’t know how I’m supposed to suspend disbelief enough to accept that one family just keeps giving birth to kids without their left hands purely for the sake of some ancient murder cult legacy. It felt a little too plot-convenient and not eerie in a believable way anymore. Also, I legit couldn’t keep up with that last chapter cuz waaay too many names, too many interwoven connections, like someone just dumped a full family tree on my head and expected me to emotionally connect to it all in a span of ten pages and I kind of tuned out halfway through. It’s one of those books I’m glad I read because the format is still fascinating, but I’m not sure it’ll stick with me the same way the first one did and so it's going to be a 3 or a 2.5 from me||
light pine
I couldn't agree more! Also, ||it felt like the solution/ wild guess was there since the beginning and there was a lot of words just to tell the story. It felt like someone was teaching a lesson or something.||
charred yoke
Starting 
Chapter 1 || That escalated quickly. Like I assume it shouldn’t be funny but it was funny to me how quickly they went from hmm weird house to hmm locking a child to hmm this was an elaborate plan with secret passage and a child used to murder people like what It just felt a bit over the top how fast they went to this conclusion based on just some questionable apartment layout ||
charred yoke
I will say that they pictured the floor plans waaaay more often than needed in t...
Also I only started but THIS! There was more pictures than the text and so annoying changing the pages on e-reader just to discover the picture again and again
charred yoke
Chapter 2 || Don’t know what to think or say other than for now it’s worse than Strange Pictures. Everything happening too fast we jump from one conclusion to another one and everything changing within the same page. “Don’t trust her she was not the wife, I won’t but I also asked bluntly about who she really is oh the sister now I trust let’s meet 3 together okay right now okay new things to the story with cousin dead with father with sister moving out when young” like what the heck slow down. I can’t even get invested in this. And the whole concept of architect being okay with building weird things or possibly not marking on the project makes no sense ||
charred yoke
Chapter 3 || “It’s just a theory, it sounds unlikely”. Naaaah. Your theory about cult adopting children killers with insane amount of money for new houses and secret passages sounds far fetched? Can’t be! Sounds completely normal to me, would be for sure my first thought after seeing a weird house sketch ||
charred yoke
Chapter 4 || Not finished yet but this gives me a headache. Plus I don’t like mystery stories that give us vital information only at the end so we couldn’t know much before anyway ||
charred yoke
Finished || Yeah. Strange Pictures were better (rated it 3/5). Here we had pictures/plans included in mystery too which was cool, I like the concept, but I felt like it was so much worse than what we had in Strange Pictures. And the whole idea of children killers from the very beginning meh. And the explanation with cult and legend and curse and no left hand ugh. That was way too much for me to enjoy it or believe it. It was short and fast and rarely sometimes interesting but that’s about it. I also couldn’t care less about not knowing the body from Chapter 1 and not being sure if the letter was actually from Keita. I just didn’t appreciate how the ending still left so many questions and things unresolved. And when the whole family tree and names and seventh child of someone idea started I just wanted to stop even trying to understand it lmao. || Glad I didn’t “pay” for it since it’s included in my subscription book service 2.25/5
proven portal
Starting soon!!!
proven portal
Okay starting reading this today and rereading You Like It Darker 
faint patrol
Just started this and ||the first floor plan seems completely bizarre to me. Why are all the bathrooms/plumbing only accessible through bedrooms/other rooms? That would be so annoying if I lived in a house like that.||
Chapter 1: ||How creepy if you did think you could hear noises that made it sound like someone else was in the house. I wouldn't want to stay in a house like that.||
||That circled space on the floor plan doesn't even look that big but it's weird that it's an inaccesible space that exists. It's almost like someone has put in a bit of a false wall but what could it be hiding or what is stored in there?||
||Me thinking that surely the kids room goes against building regulations because it doesn't have a window and only one exit which is directly into another room ||
||This is reminding me of Strange Pictures (understandable) where people are immediately jumping to child abuse.||
||Overlaying the plans was a little bit hard for me to read tbh but a secret passageway from the 'hidden' kids room to the kitchen does seem a little bit creepy.||
||I think some significant leaps are being made here just based on the floor plan. Now we've added a child killer to the mix which just seems so farfetched.||
faint patrol
Chapter 2: ||Honestly I find it so funny/bizarre that we're getting this narrative of parents making their child murder people. Surely that's not going to be what's actually happening. I do feel like Miyae is still grieving her husband and sometimes you jump to wild conclusions like that when you don't have answers.||
||Are houses in Japan regularly knocked down and rebuilt? I get the impression that a house that's 40 years old is meant to seem old whereas my house is over 200 years old and that seems pretty normal to me ||
||This house shape and the triangular extension with no door to the garden does seem a little strange tbh. I feel like the ideas the characters have in this book are a bit ott and it just seems hard to believe that there is some secret cellar or dead body storage area ||
||So now they're positing that this couple trafficked a child to make him a killer and then years later went on to have a biological baby that they doted on? I'm just not buying it.||
||Wait, she lied about him being her husband? Who is she then?||
||Her sister being whisked away in the night as a child and her being told to forget all about her 
that's so creepy tbh.||
Chapter 3: ||I really don't like these rooms that are only accessible through other rooms. It's very 
and I can't tell if it's a form of control or not, especially considering some of the rooms were locked. I'm just going to assume that everything is creepy from here on out.||
||Is the room sharing situation and the altar that are depicted on this floor plan typical?||
||Things definitely aren't adding up and I'm leaning more towards someone lying/misremembering than whatever theory they're going to come up with.||
||Not another hidden room so now the theory is that basically every room + the altar has a hidden space and this murderous child went through all of them to take and kill Yoichi? Sure.||
||A lot of this feels like a theory is posed and then a character goes 'oh yes, I've just remembered this which totally backs that up'. It feels a little backwards.||
Chapter 4: ||I want to know what actually happened to Ayano after she was taken in the night. We know she turned up after that point but where did she go and what happened to her?||
||The offering of the left hand? So all these bodies having their hand chopped off is because of a ritual/sacrifice? 
||
||How did they manage to hide a pregnancy/babies born out of incest? then the casual reveal that it isn't the first time this has happened.||
||This book is just massively losing me. It's like it's trying to be edgy and is just overly convoluted.||
||They kept her locked up so she couldn't get an abortion and prevent the tradition/the murder of a child? That's horrible. I don't understand why they're still upholding this superstition and memorial to someone when it involves kids killing kids.||
||Of course it ends on questions/doubt about the story 
||
teal oak
hello i got a copy and i'm re-joining this 
faint patrol
What in the world was this book 
||it just felt so extreme from the beginning and I don't think there was ever really a twist which is something I enjoy in mysteries. The answers were given in the first chapter and whilst reading it, it felt like I was being led down a path of 'why' rather than 'who', but even then not everything was explained which just made this such a letdown. I really enjoyed Strange Pictures but this just fell so flat to me. The answers we got didn't really satisfy me and felt so unrealistic, and to then leave a lot unresolved just wasn't enjoyable for me. It felt somewhat hard to follow at times because there were so many characters involved and everything could've been tied together a bit better. I'm being generous and giving this 2 ⭐ ||
lapis gustBOT
@faint patrol,@charred yoke,@eternal swan,@light pewter,@proven portal,@west narwhal,@light pine,@upbeat trench,@south roost,@lilac cove,@carmine wolf,@fleet matrix,@fringe mountain,@balmy oyster,@sacred bone,@broken grail,@teal oak
Hey everyone! We have about a week and a half left in this buddy read. I'll pin a list of everyone who has finished and discussed enough for BR points.
Discussion questions - chapter 1 spoilers:
Discussion questions - chapter 2 spoilers:
I know copies of this were relatively hard to come by as it was a big new release so if you're still waiting on your copy and would like an extension then please let me know.
faint patrol
I have just seen that there's going to be a third book - Strange Buildings
eternal swan
Oh nice
charred yoke
What do you think Strange what could be the best? Strange toilets, Strange Clothes, Strange Cars etc.
faint patrol
finished: Raabia, pauline, lioness, rin, spinch, hanzy, Intro, abi, Sophie, jana Vaude
currently reading: Alex
faint patrol
finished: Raabia, pauline, lioness, rin, spinch, hanzy, Intro, abi, Sophie, jana...
Strange Sewers (or Tunnels)
teal oak
What do you think Strange what could be the best? Strange toilets, Strange Cloth...
strange books maybe
charred yoke
Strange Sewers (or Tunnels) <:kek:811230413154025472>
Or Strange Streets, I see the potential for both
fringe mountain
What do you think Strange what could be the best? Strange toilets, Strange Cloth...
Strange People - I will write that one actually
it‘s just about people you meet in customer service
no spooky twist or anything
west narwhal
Strange temples? Strange castles? Strange beaches!
eternal swan
strange discord servers
south roost
I’m loving all the options!
south roost
strange discord servers
Maybe we can do one ourselves for this one, like we all write it together
eternal swan
omg yes
light pine
Me starting typing an essay to answer the questions => realizing they are addressed to those still reading the book and that I wrote a bunch of spoilers 
faint patrol
you can answer one question for each without giving full book spoilers if you want 
I'll be posting chapter 3 and 4 questions in the wrap-up as well as overall questions too
upbeat trench
Starting!
upbeat trench
This first chapter is... something
|| it seems a pretty far fetched idea they are using a child to murder people, but then again... you never know. Weirdo's enough||
upbeat trench
Chapter 2: || I agree on that Miyae seems suspicious. How in the world was she able to find that floorplan of the other house. It seems quite impossible to me. And then now also that she isn't actually married to her supposed husband. Hmmm. I wonder what's that going to be about||
upbeat trench
Chapter 3: || Aahhh so she is the sister of that mother. I'm honestly pretty invested with this whole story, and especially the part with her grandparents house. I feel like the author and his friend haven't got the full picture about what happened there right. But who knows.||
|| Wow that phone call seems too big of a coincidence😭 ||
teal oak
starting this next
teal oak
one ||i‘m actually laughing because the jump from (in my head at least) secret hidden child to stabbing a guest in the bathroom is just so ridiculous||
||oh the child is the one doing the stabbing not the parents... lol.. i mean why, are they training a future serial killer or something?||
upbeat trench
Finished: || I read some of the others their reviews here, and I agree on what most have been saying: that the wild guesses that ended up being right, especially the ones from the start, made the story just very unbelievable/ unrealistic. Even so, I still ended up really enjoying reading this; it's a short and really fast paced story with good mysterious vibes (even though it was a bit unrealistic at some points). So it was a really nice and easy read for me on a tired day.
I think the backstory of the Katabuchi family and how the offering of the left hand ritual came to be was quite interesting. I honestly didn't see such an extensive backstory coming.
Though I'm dissapointed that we didn't get awnsers to all our questions, and that there also was a cliffhanger. I now wanna know what happened to Keita. I honestly first thought he was just fine, until they started mentioning him at the end apperently not being fine. So I'm not sure about what happened there. Did I miss something?
And also what was now the real purpose of the triangular room? Was the nursery the real awnser for that? And then ofcourse we also don't know what happened to the other body
||
3,5⭐️ I still enjoyed it!
faint patrol
Finished: || I read some of the others their reviews here, and I agree on what m...
||I took it as the triangular room actually being the nursery as well but now you're making me doubt it 
||
upbeat trench
||I took it as the triangular room actually being the nursery as well but now yo...
LMAO, I'm sorry
teal oak
two ||i find the windowless children’s rooms so fucking weird and creepy|| ||also the triangular room mystery is making me lose my mind a bit LMAO|| ||why are we theorising that there was another child i mean what if the person inhabiting the child’s room wasn’t even a child 
|| ||they’re not married 
|| ||sorry if i’m stupid but does this mean they met when the older sister was 15. so did she leave at 12 bcs of the guy or what||
teal oak
i'm getting a bit tired with the way this is formatted, like it's exhausting somehow
teal oak
three ||NGL i've completely lost track of how this house with the tatami rooms look like i'm just vibing. sorry|| ||but like why are we so hellbent on a child murderer like why is the story focused on a kid being the murderer idk if i'm just being dramatic rn but it's absurd. not impossible so maybe that's why but like i'm confused lol||
teal oak
four || “the offering of the left hand” sounds like a cult and i‘m here for it. i might be pissed off if this takes an overtly supernatural tone though 
after how twisty strange pictures was.. || ||NOT THE INCEST 
|| ||why does he feel sad lol when she was here he didn‘t pay attention to her i might smack him unfortunately|| ||i would be freaked out by the missing left hand too yes given the context|| ||five wives 
i didn‘t know polygamy existed in japan why am i silly|| okay i finished it and huh
this was awful i‘m so sorry 
finishing thoughts ||listen, honestly, this book lost me the moment they became so hellbent on a child being the killer. like i‘m sorry but that‘s just not realistic at all especially with the evidence given. like, it would make more sense to be like “oh, they‘re keeping a child here, locked up, with no sun, why?” and they DID do that but i felt like the theory of a serial killing child just overshadowed this entire book and was the main theory and it felt weird because there was just no proof honestly and like. what. like it might have worked if this came up a bit later in the book with more evidence but you think a CHILD killed people because of a RANDOM ROOM IN THE MIDDLE OF A HOUSE? do not fucking piss me off bro. this was in THE FIRST CHAPTER TOO like ||
||the floor plans were just way too much. i appreciated them in the first chapter but i think i went cross-eyed during the tatami room chapter. like genuinely i don‘t remember anything about that chapter because i was just so confused with the information overload. and also, i‘m sorry but there were just too many characters. but i accept that this is a me issue because for some godforsaken reason i just cannot process or remember japanese names, maybe my lineage is too traumatised by colonisation /j but srsly i did have a bit of a headache trying to keep up with who is who in the final chapter when the beans are all spilled, but this is a ME issue so not blaming the book. also, the incest? felt like a cheap trick. i wish there were more breadcrumbs. this guy just shoved an entire incest bread in my mouth out of nowhere. this chapter just wasn‘t done/written very well to be honest. like everything was coming out but i do not care. it did not hold my attention.||
ok done purr
not done actually purr
||did i like the sacrifice path this book took? sorta. i liked this aspect. it was very... interesting? i don‘t know what the word is, sorry (/gen) that because a man has done a woman wrong now their entire family must cut off left hands and stuff. but also how did she die of that i mean maybe it‘s because of the blood loss but when it turns out she was dead i was like wait what because she cut her hand off. but also i‘m not an employee of the medical field so this could be entirely possible and i‘m just being stupid.||
||oh, i also wish the ending was a bit more definite. like no cliffhanger and weird smiles over coffee mugs.||
light pewter
Starting this! (Maturing is realising my house is too messy right now to take aesthetic pictures of my Kindle, but that is on-theme for the read so fuck it 
)
Chapter 1, 7%: ||Ah yes. The "let's show the floorplans every 2 pages athough you pretty much have the layout decorated right now", consistent with the first book. Pretty sure this book is actually 100 pages long if we ignore the pictures 
||
Chapter 1, 9%: LMAOOOOOOOO hold me ||the stabbing "daydream" I'm, what||
Ok, up to chapter 2 and ||we can assume all the stories are going to be connected. Up to a rough start so far... but let's give this one a try.||
2, up to "Differences", 22%: || Can you believe this dude publishing an article about SPECULATION on a murder house with a KILLER CHILD would be considered normal? Neither do I 
||
light pewter
2, 32%: ||I totally lost it at the neighbour going "ok but why are you asking all these questions" and the Author going "just because lmao" and she just "OK LOL I'll spill" 
||
proven portal
I'm up to A Grisly Discovery and I am ||just Kurihara "Oh do you think that this extra bedroom was for guests?" "Nah, it's a child murderer plot bro, trust."||
light pewter
Finished chapter 2 and ||so far, these two dudes are REACHING. I can't take the amounts of guessing they're doing seriously. How do you just... get to these conclusions based on floor plans 
||
3, 49%: ||"symmetry religious cult"... cool cool cool cool I guess no one bats an eye at this and it won't have anything to do with the outcome of the story 
||
light pewter
it‘s just about people you meet in customer service
I can co-author, I am so tired, Customer Service is hell
light pewter
Ch. 3, 61%: ||This summs this book pretty well so far 
||
proven portal
I finished 
faint patrol
Vaude thoughts 
proven portal
Hi I'm doing all my thoughts today, sorry about the small delay!
||Ultimately I did like this book but it's definitely less good than Strange Pictures. It's still massively bingeable in terms of pacing and how the story flows. I think that the big appeal to me personally is just how WILD this plot is in terms of the characters just spitballing the most insane concepts and just going with it. The plot is incredibly silly, very b-movie flavoured but the book itself takes the story as serious as possible. ||
||The author is set on a hunt by his friend Yanagioka who casually mentions wanting to buy a house and oh-so-casually asks if our author (an expert in the occult) could look at the floorplan of the house he’s planning to buy and give him feedback. Honestly, Yanagioka could’ve asked me and I could’ve come up with the same answer without taking even a day: don’t buy this house. It’s a shitty house. Never, ever take a house where you have to go through someone else’s bedroom to get to your bedroom. And that's without me throwing out my equally unhinged child murderer theory. Kurihara, the author's architect friend, instead fills in for Vaude to tell him the murdering child who scampers around in the walls theory. An article is published about the spooky house and a dead body that was found near it with a missing left hand. Next the author receives a strange email about someone with a possible connection to the house.||
||I can see how it all fits together, but...isn't it all a little far-fetched? It's so convoluted.||
||What follows next is a mad plot about a family curse, incest babies and the fact that the mother character knew all of this and kindly took the time to inform the main characters about all the nuances of this for the reader's benefit. 
It's just very silly all around and feels like reading a 2ch thread with neat pictures included. It's a very very convoluted plot, definitely not spooky so I can happily add it to my list of mild spooks list if people ask me for recommendations. I'd love to be more pressed about it but honestly, it's just a fun lil read. It's not high art and I still enjoy Uketsu as a creator; enough that I think that I'm going to get Strange Buildings when it comes.||
faint patrol
I'm gonna be looking out for the release date for Strange Buildings because I still can't see an announcement for it yet 
eternal swan
light pewter
I finished 
faint patrol
ooh this finishes tomorrow so if you haven't started yet and want to then go, go, go 
faint patrol
I finished <:e8sadplease:991129240999317554>
Alex thoughts 
light pewter
Final Thoughts 
||What the hell dude. Strange Pictures wasn't brilliant but I enjoyed it to a degree. This was just... lacklustre in every way. I feel that, if the author wanted me to get through the last 70% of this book and enjoy it, I would have needed MUCH better writing and a way of telling the story that didn't feel so plain. The fact everything in this is a recollection by someone else feels very static. The delivery was deadpan, every single time. The incest, the revelations, the complicated family trees and connections, the attempt at suspense at the end... it just felt so flat for me. I confess I tried keeping up with the family members but I literally could not care. I think that's definitely on me, though.||
||Why was this plot so farfetched? The conversations between the characters were so unbelievable that even the different people in this novel didn't believe what they were conversing about. I LIKED the theory and the "curse" and the fact that this could be, very much, a great plot. The delivery was so poor and the format of this book just let me down overall. ALSO I wanted MORE STRANGE HOUSES! It's in the title!! Give me more weird floor-plans and less family trees ||
Sorry to be a hater, but this wasn't it for me. 2
light pine
This 
is what struck me more compared to Strange Pictures. ||Only a couple of houses and going over the same floor plan over and over again? ||
faint patrol
||The way I asked that as a question because I thought the same thing ||
lapis gustBOT
@faint patrol,@charred yoke,@eternal swan,@light pewter,@proven portal,@west narwhal,@light pine,@upbeat trench,@south roost,@lilac cove,@carmine wolf,@fleet matrix,@fringe mountain,@balmy oyster,@sacred bone,@broken grail,@teal oak
This marks the end of the buddy read for Strange Houses! Thank you all for joining me in this.
Discussion questions - chapter 3 spoilers:
Discussion questions - chapter 4 spoilers:
For those who did finish Strange Houses, will you be returning for Strange Buildings which was teased at the end of this book?
light pine
I will if it's also free on Storytel! This book felt like the initial idea got kind of tired soon, so I wouldn't like to actually buy the next one.
light pewter
<@198521454579548160>,<@420200243015974912>,<@547079441071734794>,<@245154841356...
||I honestly don't know but I guess it's heavily hinted it was the matriarch instead. I don't care enough as I didn't feel invested to even follow along unfortunately 
||
|| I feel like this was so unsatisfying overall?! Unless the next book is severely edited and doesn't have the same "creepypasta vibe", I don't think I'll be picking it up.||
charred yoke
Same as Lio, this one was a miss for me but since so far those books were available on Storytel I don't mind testing/reading them for "free", so if it's on Storytel I will be down to join Strange Buildings
faint patrol
I feel like I want to know where it goes next as well but if the book is another dud then it'll probably be my last read by Uketsu
light pine
Thank you for hosting, abi!
light pewter
thanks for hosting! I really enjoyed reading others' thoughts on this one
will join this if i can get a library copy.
