Review: Goth

Goth by Otsuichi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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Creepy, but still feels so....disconnected. The stories didn't draw me in. Most times it was just boring. This isn't as engaging as Battle RoyaleBattle Royale, nor as interesting as ConfessionsConfessions. I had high expectations for this book simply because I regard Japanese literature as uniquely crafted, but Goth just didn't work out for me. The characters were too devoid of emotions, which I know is the point of the novel, but it drew no sense of believability. Without it being believable, every story just sounded ridiculous. I guess the problem I had with this is how the chapters are just short stories of Morino and her classmate's interactions with killers. But these killers were not built with the same development as the main characters. These killer just seem so abrupt and absurd. I detected a sinister character development with the two main characters (more with the boy than with Morino, which is another source of disappointment), but even that was rushed. The rest of the characters were just treated as background noise. I would have enjoyed this book if it focused on one or two killers, and narrated the story around them.

The only reason I'm not giving this a one-star rating is because of the chapter entitled Memory/Twins. That was the only chapter that provided me with the right blend of horror, mystery, and emotion from the book. Despite the twists, the other stories were narrated with a monotonous feel, and I just wanted to get it over with.

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