Start Date: 24/11/2021 End Date: 22/1/2022

Genre/Tropes: There were different genres but mainly Japanese horror and thriller

Summary: A collection of stories based in Japan

Thoughts: I remember buying this book on book depository YEARS ago because I had read a really good fic that was based on the short stories of this book. It was only now that I got around to reading it. I'm honestly too lazy to write a review on each short story and I had already done so in my other journal so I'll literally just rank the best to worst and provide a sentence or two on my thoughts.

• In a park at twilight, a long time ago- MY absolute fav in the entire collection. It was literally only 2 pages though. It was short, simple and memorable. It was also horror which was the whole reason I was there.
• Song of the sunny spot- I already wrote a listography post on this.
• The white house in the cold forest- This story was really good! It was basically a guy who kills people and builds a house out of their dead bodies in like the middle of winter, so they ended up going white I guess. Hence the title of the story. Couldn't get more horror than that.
• Zoo- It was the first story I read. It was really good and basically set up really high expectations of the book. It was also the whole basis on the fic that I had read years ago.
• Wardrobe- I could honestly feel the interest I was having with this story dwindle before my very eyes. I honestly can't remember much about this story unless I went back and flicked through it. But I don't really want to cuz I already journaled the shit out of it and honestly want to move on at this point.
• SO-far- I felt bad for the MC cuz he was constantly getting dragged into the arguments between his parents seeing as he was the only one who could see them both.
• In a falling airplane- Second story in the book. It was alright but wasn't horror or thriller which was what I was expecting/ hoping.
• Find the blood!- All I remember from this story was being annoyed at how dumb the main characters were. the MC got stabbed by someone in the family so they spend the entire book trying to find the bag the family dr had forgotten, whereas they could have saved pages and could have just gone to the hospital and any point in the story.
• Kazari and Yoko- This story was pretty boring to say the least. I was having a lot of deja vu when reading this and realized that the author was just repeating scenes that were already written. I didn't like any of the characters. The mother was abusive, the sister was sociopathic and the MC never really changes throughout the story.
• Seven rooms- A had a lot of issues with this story. It had so much potential to be good. The main character was like 10 because he was trapped with his 14 year old sister and those two were considered one person (the author stressed this) but then this 10 year old would then say things like "I had to ascertain his modus operandi". That's honestly fucking comical at this point. Call me illiterate but I don't think I spoke like that at age 10. The author also took what was probably the entire story trying to explain how the seven rooms worked when he could have just explained it in a page or two.
• Words of God- I feel like the author fell short of the ending. The way it was written was that it felt like the author was doing a creative writing piece in an exam and realised he only had like 10 minutes left so he just starts writing a bunch of whatever at the end no matter how confusing it may be.

Overall, a lot of these stories were very hit or miss. The ones that were good where AMAZING but the ones that weren't good was fucking TERRIBLE. I feel that the quality went to shit as the stories progressed as the good ones were at the front of the book. It also makes sense seeing as the author of that one fic only referenced the really good stories.

Overall- 5/10

Recommend?- I'd only recommend stories 1,2,3 and 4. You could honestly skip the rest and you wouldn't feel bad about it.

Reread?- Only the good first 4 stories.