rachelmanija | Entries tagged with author: uketsu

Another mystery with light horror/urban legend elements and a heavy use of images by the mysterious and pseudonymous Uketsu. If you like creepypasta, you will like this.

An abandoned blog with sketches of a woman's future child may reveal a horrifying secret. A child's drawings of his apartment building worry his teacher. A mountaintop murder has a clue in a sketch by the murder victim. How do the images reveal the solutions? Are these three weird stories related?

I enjoyed this very much. It's exactly as fun and bonkers as the first Uketsu book I read, Strange Houses, but feels more confident and assured. It also reads more like a normal novel, with actual scenes rather than solely relying on interviews and exposition.

I'm excited to read his next two books (forthcoming in English) Strange Buildings (originally published in Japanese as Strange Houses 2, which the translator says is more dark/disturbing than the first two) and Strange Maps, which the translator says is more of a classic mystery.

Content notes: Child abuse, animal in danger, brief but graphic violence.

Spoilers!

( Read more... )

This is such a fun, unique book. The opening grabs you immediately: Uketsu shows an architect friend the floor plan of a house that his friends are considering buying. The architect spots a number of odd elements that aren't just bad planning, but suggest a very carefully planned and bizarre MURDER HOUSE!

The floor plan of that house and two more come into play repeatedly as Uketsu and his friend investigate, unraveling a truly weird and sometimes spooky mystery via a series of interviews. This book breaks all sorts of rules - it's entirely told rather than shown, a lot of it is exposition, the author appears as a character, and that's not even mentioning the very large role that floor plans play - and I could not put it down.

Is the solution to the mystery absolutely nuts? Sure. Is the book a whole lot of fun to read? Absolutely. Will I recommend it to my customers? You bet!

Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, who has a nice afterword about translating it.

Apparently Uketsu is a Japanese YouTuber who only appears wearing a mask, like Chuck Tingle if his thing was drawings and creepy mysteries rather than horror and getting pounded in the butt. I can't wait to read Uketsu's other book, Strange Pictures.

A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance

Strange Pictures, by Uketsu

Strange Houses, by Uketsu

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