Loop

I started writing a pretty lengthy review and then the app shut down on me :/

So here's my condensed version out of frustration:
The Ring story apart from The Loop was fine up by itself. This book should have been completely standalone. Had it been, I'd have given it a 4. I didn't like how the ring virus was shoehorned into this one or how it ended. The first 2/3 was great though.

This book took me out because I KNEW I had to finish the trilogy but it got so confusing??? And then I started to mix up characters from the first two books and then there was the super long desert part (I could only read like one page a day because desert parts kill me) and then the whole meta concept of like “we used technology to bring you to life and you are also Ryuji and Ryuji isn't real but also part of a different timeline” I just literally on my knees

I'm really excited for Birthday, though. I feel like it's going to be a lot more palatable. Overall I would probably rate the series 4 stars because I liked the integration of math/biology and I thought the characters are pretty cool. I STILL don't really understand the virus... like, is there really such a dichotomy between the sci-fi and horror aspects of this book? The Loop turned cancerous because of Sadako's spooky curse, which functioned like a virus? But ya I did enjoy the trilogy I'm definitely going to miss it

On his mask-like face was a slight steady smile. Not because he felt especially well, but because in the face of oncoming death he mocked the world of the living.

I've read the first two books of Koji Suzuki's Ring series years ago and absolutely loved them. I grew a bit of an obsession with the entire Ring franchise rooting from having seen the American remake as a kid and then watching all the Japanese films, as well as reading those two aforementioned books. 
But when I originally started the third novel back then, life got in the way and I didn't finish it. This week I picked up the book from my shelf and gave it a second, proper read, starting from the beginning. 

The book started out pretty solid with some decent character exposition and a good set-up for the protagonist's goals and aspirations, also sprinkling in, as expected with this series, a bunch of interesting medical and science elements.
However, as we get closer to the final act and the main technological concept of this installment in the series becomes clearer, it ultimately takes an unexpected turn that establishes some new major information about everything that happened in the previous book and puts the entire story in a different, weird point of view. While I appreciate the attempt at adding some fairly high-concept science fiction elements, this one was at the same time so hamstrung that I wasn't really able to immerse myself very well, as well as retconning the stories of the previous two books in a way that didn't really work for me personally.

Loop is not a terrible book and I did enjoy at least half of it fairly well – as well as have a little bit of low-brow fun at the unexpected direction this ended up going in – but this is definitely the weakest book in the series for me so far and the first one I wouldn't recommend.