Bruna

The ‘I am a murderer and am going to murder you' sexual foreplay between the podcaster and the main suspect is the cringiest thing I have read all year, if not decade. The main character in this publishes erotica under a pseudonym, and I can't help but think that this is what this writer wants to be writing instead of a crime thriller.

This is not a terrible book, and there is certainly an audience for it that might appreciate it much more than I did. The problem is that this is not what it is sold as. There really is no thriller or mystery element. It is just a very long book about the societal pressures Japanese people face and, in a way, how to overcome them.

The ‘murderer' is not even a murderer. And no matter what her sentence in the book or what the MC says, she is not responsible for anyone's death. If she is a murderer, so is everyone who has ended a relationship that isn't working anymore. And the fact that the main character decides she is guilty even after knowing the truth (that she didn't push, drown, or poison anyone), she simply dated men who couldn't freaking function by themselves and went off the rails once she stopped mommying them. It is especially idiotic coming from the MC, who has managed to overcome the guilt of causing her father's death by not being by his side after he divorced her mom.


If the book had been sold for what it is, about characters struggling to fit in, public shaming, saving face, loneliness, shame, etc.—then that's fair enough, but they are marketing it as something that it isn't. So, it was a complete slog for me and I really would not have even picked it up if they had been honest about what the book is really about.

Not sure what I feel about this book in general, but just a quick note to say that one of the characters say they can see why someone was sexually abused as a child because they are a “beautiful freak”. The character that says this is a normal person and not written as an asshole/evil character, so I am not really sure what to make of that. Totally uncalled for and frankly disgusting.

This book is a subtle as a sledgehammer to your face. Why bother coming up with a haunted house as a metaphor if you are just going to spell everything out anyway. The characters are all caricatures and everything thay happens is so on the nose. For example there is a TERF who feels unsafe with transexual women being in the bathroom and she gives a speech about it than on the same day she gets as assaulted by a lesbian woman in the bathroom. We get it everybody can be a rapist and I agree bathrooms should be gender neutral, however the whole situation is a bit too convenient, like an after-school special. Anyway I was really looking forward to it but this would have worked better as a nonfiction essay.

I am kind of over the whole “these non-believers are going to learn that evil is real and demons exist (and thus the Church/God is real) “ plotline. At best it is a tired cliche and at worst it is just religious propaganda... The book had potential and was decently written, but it devolves into a trope fest by the end of it.

Also, I hope the author has a Sicilian background as there were A LOT of comments saying Sicilians are X and Y which will be even iffier if the author is just regurgitanting stereotypes...