(^^,)

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.