(^^,)

I aspire to be as witty and straightforward as that gargoyle.

I liked the book. It was a nice read and wasn't something I would have typically looked for, so forming the ideas and settings in my head was refreshing.

However, The book has me of two minds.

I found the start of the book to be a little slow - a gentle introduction on the current state of affairs, the mystery of the dreaming, the six Diviners. If you approach it from the view that the Cathedral and each other is all that they knew about since the start (and that this is a two-book series), then the world-building is easier to digest.

As soon as the characters leave the Cathedral and everything unravels, the book picks up in pace and they're jumping from area to area in order to complete their objectives. That speed unfortunately came with a slight lack of depth, though; I would have liked to know more about each area: how they came to be, why something is where it was. Naturally, once they were done with their objective in one area (and also because of time) they immediately moved on, which is fair, but they left me behind as well.

I'll admit - I wasn't expecting the ending. I should have, but I didn't.

All things aside, I have no complaints - only wishes. I'll have to see how the second book goes.

I'm glad they weren't bad.

It's a feel good, coming-of-age-but-already-of-age book that you would enjoy in a week - I certainly did. It has a nice mix of humour, British sarcasm, mysticism and growth.

It does have the usual tropes associated with placing fantasy in an unexpecting world: the friend who doesn't know, the hastily forged band of characters, the plot twist that completely wrecks the status quo. Tropes as they may be, I think they were portrayed and handled well.

There's a healthy balance of switching between the normal and the abnormal, with a dash of realism. It must have been exhausting to be unable to put your all into both your day and night jobs, in general - let alone while being tired.

The ending felt a little sped up compared to the rest of the book; I don't know if it's fantasy books in general but what I've been reading recently starts off quite slow and foundational, then events quickly become flash cards by the end. In this case, once I got to the last chapter, it became very "but then everything was okay in the end" and I think there may have been room to flesh out what happened in more detail. I was in no rush.

Overall, I liked it and I look forward to the second in the series.

Where did he go?

What great writing. I wasn't sure where this book would take me, but I'm glad it did when it did. I gasped with each revealed plot point, slowly understanding what everything meant and where the pieces of the puzzle fit.

The images which bound the spine of the story were fun and surprisingly intriguing to think about. I really couldn't figure out what they meant before the book explained their meanings, but I think that added to the shock. They reminded me a little bit of dingbats (or rebuses for some) in how one had to view (or rather, solve) them. I won't spoil.

I also have to mention the troubled cast of characters, beautifully carrying out their roles in the story. The world is small, but in this case, perhaps a little too small for comfort.

Overally, a spooky book that I liked reading. My only wish is that I hadn't finished it before it was time for bed. I think I'll stay up a little.

There's a gravestone here for someone with the same name as me.

Disclaimer: I only read this because my local bookshop had the hardcover with sprayed edges. It's so pretty!

That out of the way, this was a tough read for me. I'm not a fan of storylines involving imprisonment, and any unsavoury actions associated with that kind of lack of control, trigger warnings aside. It was tough, icky, and uncomfortable, but I was warned.

The book does well to pull at heartstrings (no pun intended, seriously) and the author is great at highlighting how awful people, primarily men, can be when you let viewpoints and actions go unchecked. Like, disgustingly well. Every time we're taken back to Biltmore, I gained a knot in my stomach and really didn't want to continue reading for fear of what could happen.

In typical Enemies to Lovers fashion, I roll my eyes at the love interests. This isn't anything against the author, but the trope has no choice in being insufferable. Two characters shout profanities, spit vitriol (and sometimes literal saliva), then proceed to test the structural stability of a windowsill by trying to repeatedly emboss an ass-sized dent in it. This book is no different in continuing this trope.

I gave the book its rating because, alongside my view on the dark themes, the communication between the two main characters is abysmal. Sure, it's intentional - secrets need to be kept, and legilimency (yes, call a spade a spade) is a serious issue in the plot - but they're literal teenagers and I'm too old for their bickering.

..and yes, I was informed before reading that this spawned from a Dramione fanfic. The Auction, if you're interested in reading the story in its origin form beforehand. At the start, I tried to see which Harry Potter characters mapped to which characters in this book. However, it wouldn't have been to the author or the book to continue thinking that way, so I stopped and read the book as its own canon. There was a certain person I couldn't help viewing a certain way, but I'll leave that to your imagination.

I may read the next books in the series, if only to find out how it ends.

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

I dove into this immediately after Strange Pictures, curious to know how Uketsu was planning to take me with this mystery book.

It started off rather innocent - as the namesake states, you're introduced to a strange house layout. Once I saw the first layout (not a spoiler - the book title has plurality), I realised I had seen it from somewhere else already. Perhaps Uketsu themselves, or TikTok, or Instagram - some other media. Anyway, I had forgotten what I gained from seeing it the first time, so it wasn't much of a spoiler for me and rather spurred me on to find out (or remember) what was so strange about it.

I had no idea what I was in for.

The story takes you way further than just peculiar blueprints. It takes you to (in Uketsu fashion) a world smaller than you'd like to admit, to family secrets, to whodunnit-style sleuthing, to shock and horror. One wouldn't be wrong in thinking that the entire situation was simply too complex and extreme to be realistic, but humans are capable of more than you would like to admit.

At some point, I was hit with a barrage of information on how things came to be. I got lost in the sheer amount of names, their relation to each other, but I think I got there in the end. I'm sure if I go back and re-read it, perhaps with a pen and paper, I could get my head around the intricacies of the plot. Perhaps I will, in the future.

For now, I liked what I read, and I look forward to the next translated book.