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hauntthetale's review against another edition
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, and Violence
rit's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is a funny thriller book that it seems to be happening in a theatre, because everything happening is on the same train.
I can't talk much about this book without spoiling, but, omg, the characters are amazing and the plot twist too.
Highly recommend.
I can't talk much about this book without spoiling, but, omg, the characters are amazing and the plot twist too.
Highly recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
Moderate: Addiction
Minor: Child death
kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
this book draaaaaagged. how was something chock full of assassins so damn boring? so many unnecessarily long descriptions and memories and jesus fuck don’t get me started on the fucking thomas & friends. any humor that mustve been present in the Japanese original did not translate
i wanted the prince to die from page 10 & the little fucker just persisted! so frustrating
things heated up towards the end but frankly none of it was worth the 300+ page slog to get there.
i found myself rooting for tangerine & lemon’s survival, but ultimately i just wanted to see the prince die & !spoiler! the book delivered on neither of those things. happy the little kid is okay though
i wanted the prince to die from page 10 & the little fucker just persisted! so frustrating
things heated up towards the end but frankly none of it was worth the 300+ page slog to get there.
i found myself rooting for tangerine & lemon’s survival, but ultimately i just wanted to see the prince die & !spoiler! the book delivered on neither of those things. happy the little kid is okay though
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Transphobia and Homophobia
Minor: Misogyny
eicaxy's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Kidnapping, and Violence
Minor: Animal cruelty and Child abuse
jhbandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I decided to read this after seeing the movie and I wish I’d read this first since the movie has colored my impressions. The movie was an action thriller with LOTS of dark humor - very dark but very funny. I really liked the movie and saw it several times - the quirkiness of the humor appealed to me.
The book is much darker. The characters as a whole really weren’t at all likable - they were pathetic, or buffoonish, or evil. There was some humor to it but it seemed like a satire of itself, not the kind of humor that leaves you feeling good.
I think there’s no way I can write a decent review because I keep judging the book by the movie, and that’s not fair. What’s good about the book is lots of action and the train being an unusual setting. Definitely don’t see the movie first if you’re trying to decide which to experience - read the book first!
The book is much darker. The characters as a whole really weren’t at all likable - they were pathetic, or buffoonish, or evil. There was some humor to it but it seemed like a satire of itself, not the kind of humor that leaves you feeling good.
I think there’s no way I can write a decent review because I keep judging the book by the movie, and that’s not fair. What’s good about the book is lots of action and the train being an unusual setting. Definitely don’t see the movie first if you’re trying to decide which to experience - read the book first!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Gore, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcoholism, Death, Gun violence, Blood, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
themoodreader's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Blood, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Bullying, Death, Murder, Child death, and Violence
Minor: Child death, Confinement, Torture, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Violence, Blood, and Gun violence
danscoada's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
Oh boy I really didn’t like this. I wish I DNFed, but there was enough to keep me going and I intend on watching the movie soon, so I pushed through in order to make accurate comparisons.
I hated all of the characters. Obviously they’re not meant to be good people, but I mean that I hated how they were written. Tangerine and his EXCESSIVE goings-on about Thomas and Friends started as endearing but turned out to be just incredibly annoying, regardless of how it served the plot in the end. The Prince was just awful. He’s meant to be, but instead of finding his mindset and philosophies interesting, I mostly found them to be irritating.I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for a child to be killed before, but I’m very disappointed we didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing him killed. Nanao was fine, but he couldn’t shut up about his bad luck. It was important for it to be established, but unnecessary to be mentioned on every single page. Yuichi Kimura was the one I felt the most sympathy for.
Ultimately I was left feeling underwhelmed with the ending and feeling like I wasted my time.
I hated all of the characters. Obviously they’re not meant to be good people, but I mean that I hated how they were written. Tangerine and his EXCESSIVE goings-on about Thomas and Friends started as endearing but turned out to be just incredibly annoying, regardless of how it served the plot in the end. The Prince was just awful. He’s meant to be, but instead of finding his mindset and philosophies interesting, I mostly found them to be irritating.
Ultimately I was left feeling underwhelmed with the ending and feeling like I wasted my time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Torture
Minor: Child death, Sexism, and Fatphobia
alexanderjd's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Death, and Violence
Minor: Homophobia and Transphobia
ekua33's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
apalershadeofwhite's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This was such an interesting read! I thoroughly enjoyed it! The book was funny, engaging, heart-breaking; everything that makes an all-round great novel. It was written really well and was super engaging. I often found myself not realising how long a chapter was because I was so into it! I did notice, though, that the chapters were longer at the beginning compared to the end of the novel. I'm not sure whether this was intentional or not, but it was super effective either way. There was a natural tension as you read the book because you're waiting for a conclusion and want to know what will happen to the characters, but the fact that the chapters slowly became shorter as you progressed through the book sped up the narrative and created more tension in a really effective way.
(Side note: I freaking love that there was a graphic at the beginning of each chapter showing which cars of the train the characters were in.)
With the book being very plot driven, it was so cool to see how in-depth the characters were throughout. I never knew what was going to happen because the characters were so unpredictable, which made for such a fun reading experience. Nanao and the Prince, specifically, were really fun to follow as they were both insanely smart characters, and I could not predict where their minds went or what they were going to do. They were such a good juxtaposition as well, because Nanao was a lightning-quick thinker whereas the Prince considered every possible thing before doing anything. However, when it came of Lemon and Tangerine - the classic duo - it was much more plausible that Lemon liked Thomas and Friends compared to Tangerine liking literature. Tangerine's references were usually quite vague, but also his character wasn't as open or didn't talk as much as Lemon, so maybe that is why.
Another thing I liked was that lot of the characters would say similar, or even exactly the same, things! Two different people, for instance, said "it's just like riding a bike, your body knows what to do" about 'the business' and getting back into it. Things like this happened a few times and it was so interesting to see how people who are almost the antithesis to each other (and each other's jobs) think in a similar way due to their line of work.
One thing I wasn't a huge fan of, though, was the Morning Glory chapters... They threw me off because of the odd writing choices to make them completely different from the rest of the novel. Notably, the standard dialogue punctuation rules were basically obliterated. When it came to any dialogue there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the text - e.g. speech marks or even italics. The dialogue was written like a regular sentence with a comma at the end and a "morning glory replied", which was so weird to read! This was the only part that took me out of my reading flow.
*This last paragraph may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk*
The end was so cute! I loved that they changed his name to Ladybeetle in the final chapter because his luck changed! It was such a small but crazily effective details to include. Also, I really liked that the prize of the giveaway was a box of lemons and tangerines. His final line felt like pride for those two characters he has to leave behind, almost like they were saying 'see, told you we would be back'.
(Side note: I freaking love that there was a graphic at the beginning of each chapter showing which cars of the train the characters were in.)
With the book being very plot driven, it was so cool to see how in-depth the characters were throughout. I never knew what was going to happen because the characters were so unpredictable, which made for such a fun reading experience. Nanao and the Prince, specifically, were really fun to follow as they were both insanely smart characters, and I could not predict where their minds went or what they were going to do. They were such a good juxtaposition as well, because Nanao was a lightning-quick thinker whereas the Prince considered every possible thing before doing anything. However, when it came of Lemon and Tangerine - the classic duo - it was much more plausible that Lemon liked Thomas and Friends compared to Tangerine liking literature. Tangerine's references were usually quite vague, but also his character wasn't as open or didn't talk as much as Lemon, so maybe that is why.
Another thing I liked was that lot of the characters would say similar, or even exactly the same, things! Two different people, for instance, said "it's just like riding a bike, your body knows what to do" about 'the business' and getting back into it. Things like this happened a few times and it was so interesting to see how people who are almost the antithesis to each other (and each other's jobs) think in a similar way due to their line of work.
One thing I wasn't a huge fan of, though, was the Morning Glory chapters... They threw me off because of the odd writing choices to make them completely different from the rest of the novel. Notably, the standard dialogue punctuation rules were basically obliterated. When it came to any dialogue there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the text - e.g. speech marks or even italics. The dialogue was written like a regular sentence with a comma at the end and a "morning glory replied", which was so weird to read! This was the only part that took me out of my reading flow.
*This last paragraph may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk*
The end was so cute! I loved that they changed his name to Ladybeetle in the final chapter because his luck changed! It was such a small but crazily effective details to include. Also, I really liked that the prize of the giveaway was a box of lemons and tangerines. His final line felt like pride for those two characters he has to leave behind, almost like they were saying 'see, told you we would be back'.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Torture