Reviews
(3.68/5)A book of two parts
The first three quarters of this book were hands down the most satisfying reading experience I've ever had in Japanese. Thanks to the detailled floorplan illustrations, it was often possible to guess the meaning of words without looking them up. The interview style structure of this part also worked quite well and gave me the feeling that I was dynamically discovering new information along with the characters.
The last part is much harder languagewise and...sucked. The solution is infodumped on
Mystery house
The book is about an unusual house - the floorplan looks unusual. People start making theories about the house and uncover a horrifying family history.
The language was rather straight-forward and easy to understand since it was mainly dialogues for around 70% of the book. The remaining 30% get very complicated, with many people being involved and being only a monologue - making it harder to understand what actually is going on. Nevertheless, I'd still recommend it as a good read for language l
竜頭蛇尾
変な家 are 竜頭蛇尾 like two pieces that fit together, like a match made in heaven. The first 70% or so are terrific, that's 竜頭. The ending of the book is, in my opinion, 蛇尾 or くそ.
Let me explain. The first 70% are fascinating, we're getting introduced to a handful of characters. They're not really fleshed out but good enough to create a picture in our head so that we can fill out the blanks ourselves. Most of the time they're having a dialogue and we also see, with added pictures in the book, the ex
Engaging and intriguing start, that goes a bit off the rails
The first half of this book is fun and accessible with lots of floor plans. It definitely encourages you to keep reading, and there is lots of dialogue making it easy to read. The second half ... well, not so much. I won't leave any spoilers, but when the floor plans disappear there is a lot of plot exposition and it is both heavier going (a large number of names) and not so interesting. However, that said, this generated a lot of discussion in the Wanikani book club. A number of people found t
Start 2/3 with over-reaction and end 1/3 with convoluted back story.
I find bold texts every now and then on the first half of the book slightly annoying. A lot of pictures and also zoom-in with explanation on image are interesting, but text emphasis is a little too much...
The back story at the end is slightly interesting, but difficult to grasp the depth of the initial background and what are brought forward. Considering also the possibility of lies and fabrication, and so making the story l
Someone looks at a floor plan, consults someone else about it, and together they concoct the wildest theory about what must have been going on in that house. That's about it.
I deliberately used the word "someone", because all characters in the book were so featureless they could barely be called characters at all. Coupled with totally uninspiring language, this hardly felt like literature of any sort. Apparently, it was first published on youtube, which makes total sense in hindsight.
If you'
Content warnings: child abuse, murder
As a note, I listened to the audiobook, but do not own the text. My audiobook had a PDF accompaniment of the house diagrams, but I only looked at them once or twice. They're described pretty thoroughly so I didn't really need to keep referring to them.
I agree with Druadan's assessment of this book having a stronger opening than ending. The writing isn't great, but it was at least interesting at the beginning. The ending felt muddled, untidy, and ultimat
Great learning material
This was a good read. Especially in the first chapters. It's a very holistic reading experience, as you move back and forth between dialogues and analyze floor plans of houses. The vocabulary is very straightforward, especially if you're at N2 level. There's a point in the book that you're likely to be overwhelmed with new characters, and that made me very confused remembering who is who. To circumvent that, I recommend reading the last 2 chapters in one sitting. I didn't really enjoy the end of