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Finishing my three books before Snezhnaya is definitely not happening, but I did finish two, so I’m quite happy with how it went. I’ll probably try to make some progress on the third book tomorrow, but I won’t be able to finish it, even if I added Wednesday morning (or maybe??)…

禁忌の子 was really impressive for a debut novel, it starts with a very intriguing mystery and moves on to tackling much deeper and delicate medical topics.
What I really liked is that the novel is both a honkaku mystery, and medical fiction, and both are really well balanced. Medical elements are closely linked to the plot and the mystery, and the two main protagonists both being doctors was also cleverly used in several parts of the plot. It definitely gave a fresh and realistic perspective on some tropes of crime fiction.

It’s also a lot about characters and human drama, which is a part I really enjoyed, but I must also say that I found the drama parts a bit too… I don’t want to say exaggerated because it’s definitely a situation that could happen and that felt very realistic in how it was described, but the dramatic effects felt too orchestrated. The absolute contrast between Wataru and Shinya’s fates felt like a plot device, like something set by the author for the sake of the story, and this is why I’m tempted to say “exaggerated” or maybe even a bit artificial.

This being said, all the parts about the past, the mystery surrounding the characters were overall very good. The part that is more focused on the honkaku mystery was less my cup of tea. I don’t mind puzzle-solving murder mysteries, but sometimes characters tend to be only suspects, and what they were doing at what time ends up being more important than who they are as persons, which always bothers me.

I also found most of what happens in the concluding chapter a bit long and unnecessary, but overall, the book has a really good pace, it’s very engrossing, the topic is personally not something I was super interested in reading about, but it was well integrated in the plot. And I really liked Kinosaki, so I might continue the series one of these days.

I thought I’d just start chapter 5, but I ended up finishing the whole book. The end was quite engrossing, though I did find the concluding chapter a bit long.

Finished chapter 4, it ends on such a cliffhanger!

The song 桜 by コブクロ is mentioned in the novel, so I listened to it. I never heard of this band before, it’s a duo formed in 1998 and still active today.
I read the first comment on the YouTube video, someone said the song reminded them of their deceased daughter, and now I really feel like crying. The passage I just read in the book was quite depressing too.

Maybe I’ll take a break in this book now, and do something more positive for a while.

I realised I should update Keigo Higahsino’s entry in the DB… I still can’t believe he is dead.

I’ve settled on a pace of 10 new flashcards per day. I think it’s fine in terms of quantity because I do see these words more often in context compared to anki. I just need to make sure I add enough.

I added a tracker for words added and new words on my flashcards stats, so it will help keep track. The graph shows that I study 5 new words per day in average, but that was before I decided on the 10 days count. I’ll try to reach the 10 days quota, and if it feels impossible, I can always lower it 7 or 5.

I’m realising I also only have two days left to finish studying the 幻友绮旅 event story. I just started chapter 3… Good thing I’ll have a lot of time this week I think, I’ll try to do this today and tomorrow.
I probably won’t start the AQ right away, but I still want to be done with studying past events when the patch releases.

I was curious about this adaptation because I think 変な家 must be quite hard to bring to the screen. A lot of the mystery comes from looking at floor plans, discovering what is strange and let your imagination run wild, imagining what horrible truths the floor plan could hide.
I think that the adaptation was very good, but at the same time, it also couldn’t really convey what made the book so fascinating. I’d say that the houses were the real center point of the horror in the book, but it shifts to the characters instead in the book. Not that it’s a bad thing, I found it was really well done, some characters in the second half were really creepy.

As for our trio of main characters, I found them a bit too… lethargic? I felt the trio kind of lacked dynamism, which I found a bit irritating. And I personally did not like the film’s portraying of Kurihara, it was just too exaggerated, the character too eccentric.

Overall, I enjoyed watching it, but I also think it’s just less good than the book, because it keeps very close to it, but cannot use the floor plans as well as the book did, so it lost a lot of its impact. Maybe they should have gone with a complete different approach? Action scenes towards the end were quite good, but I think a lot of that horror feeling we get when reading Uketsu comes from the realisation, that moment when we understand what had happened, what the particularities of the house are meant for, it doesn’t come from action scene or our protagonist being in danger.
So on the one hand, the film is not bad, but on the other hand, it also feels unnecessary? Because it lost what made the book so impactful, but also did not really offered a different view.

Jeon Gunwoo’s books are always so suspenseful and engrossing! I loved 믹스테이프, not only the topic of the audio tape (the kind where you would record your own playlist from what would be broadcasted on the radio) was very flavourful, but the story and the structure were both really good.
The book is divided into two parts that mimic the two sides of a cassette, and what’s really interesting is that they’re different in sug-genre and even main protagonists, while still being the same story unfolding chronologically. The first side is more your typical detective work, and even though supernatural elements are present, the story is more focused on the investigation. The second side dives deep in occult, shamanism and exorcism, while uncovering truths and mysteries from the past.

I personally preferred the first part, because it matches my taste in mystery more, but both were really good and equally suspenseful.

Every time I read a book by Jeon Gunwoo I’m thinking how good it would be as a film adaptation. It was the case for 불귀도 살인사건, 죽은 집에 관한 기록 and now 믹스테이프.

Finished! Really good, and the very end was so good too!

Wow the story is really engrossing. I didn’t feel that involved in it during the first half, but things are becoming more and more interesting now.

I finished 花之歌 and listened to 谎言女友 which was very short, but one of my favourites! I love this kind of stories so much!

Finished chapter 3, the book really has a good pace, and the story becomes more and more interesting now. But somehow, I’m not 100% into it…