Strange Pictures - Uketsu
Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion
I've heard so much about both Strange Pictures and Strange Houses, all of it incredibly positive, and so I really feel like I must be missing something given how much I hated this.
"Hated" is perhaps a strong word, but I can't think of a single moment where I actually enjoyed reading Strange Pictures. For most of the book I spent my time trying to figure out what the point of it all was. The 'mysteries' here feel like they're only mysteries because somebody decided to say they were - especially the first one, about the missing blog posts. I can't imagine a world in which somebody becomes obsessed with a random blog enough to dig into it in the way the characters in the opening section do.
Everything feels forced here, from the curiosity of the people investigating these pictures, to the nature of the clues in said pictures, and the links between the different mysteries. When we reached the resolution and it all links together my response was something along the lines of "Oh. Okay then."
Needless to say, I won't be reading Strange Houses.