Out

2.5/5 stars

Trigger warning: Rape, violence, gore

I have conflicting feelings on this one.

On one hand, the first 75% was super twisted, and dark, and interesting in a way that was kind of morbidly fascinating. There were definitely sections that the pacing lagged a little, especially in moments of backstory, and in the beginning which I found particularly sluggish, but I was curious enough about what would happen next to keep reading.

Near the end, the pacing sped up...but then it took a really disturbing turn at the very end that I don't really understand. Without spoiling anything, all I'll say is there was some drastic change in two character relationships that made no sense to me, and kind of glorified a rather brutal rape scene at the end. The spoilery explanation is that Masako (one of the MCs) basically fell in love with her rapist while he was raping her? I don't know. I bought her biding her time to try to escape, but to see her want to save him after he beat, raped and nearly killed her went way beyond my suspension of disbelief and gave the whole scene an undertone of a creepy rape fantasy.

It's a shame, because I was mostly enjoying this book up until the end, but unfortunately the last fifteen pages or so totally killed it for me. I just can't get behind a book that glorifies rape in any way.