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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Probably no surprise, I read this because I'm a big fan of The Ring – the 2002 American remake (starring the one and only Naomi Watts) of the original 1998 Japanese film, Ring. A modern classic with a truly great story, which I think goes unrecognised because a lot of viewers STILL don't understand it. (No, Samara was not evil all along, and we don't acknowledge The Ring 2 or Rings because they're bad and basically retcons.)
This source material... LOL. Nothing could have prepared me. 😕
Obligatory what I did like, so I don't feel like a Negative Nancy:
• I love how much this book goes into Sadako's powers, where they came from and how they work. And, not just this, but the detailed way it goes into the curse, how it originated, how it works, why the 'charm' to break it is what it is... REALLY cool. (I don't think this is 'missing' from the film, btw, so much as the story is so significantly altered that I think it leads you to a different, simpler conclusion.)
• Uhm...? The writing was good? The translation, too?
To get into what I did not like, I have to share some SPOILERS. There's gonna be a lot of them. Read or don't. But, I went into this book pretty blind (other than having seen the film, obviously), and I wish I'd been able to make a fully-informed decision.
[SPOILERS] The BIG, GLARING problem: the attitude this book has towards rape is SO NONCHALANT (yes, nonchalant!) it's actually, like, simultaneously heinous and laughable? To summarise...
[SPOILERS] The main choice I CANNOT understand: Asakawa is, 1/3 of the way through (Suzuki saves this for when you're already invested!), randomly revealed to KNOWINGLY be friends with a serial rapist, who literally TELLS HIM every time he rapes someone ('I did it again last night')... 😕 I continued, despite the SHOCK I was in, because I could see some thematic relevance; some parallels...
Thus, I wanted to know the fate of these men – how they'd be forced to reckon with who they were and what they'd both done. But, the narrative is COMPLETELY tolerant of Asakawa's choice to be friends with a serial rapist. So, lol? And, as for said rapist, Ryūji... Well, you'd think his crimes were petty and victimless. Or, that raping women was an odd little quirk of his... Oh, Ryūji, what are you LIKE!
[SPOILERS] At the end, it's implied that Ryūji COULD be lying, which... doesn't redeem him. It SURE doesn't redeem Asakawa, who thought Ryūji was telling the truth and 'obviously' (?!) kept his secret for decades.
[SPOILERS] Then, when another man reveals he's committed a rape, he's completely absolved of responsibility, fault or blame. The implication is that he was so ill with a virus that he couldn't control himself. ?????????
[SPOILERS] Also, the way this other rape is revealed is infuriating because The Tape literally contains an OBVIOUS rape scene; like, it's SO CLEAR what's being depicted; and Suzuki just treats you like an idiot by being like HmMmMmM wOnDeR wHaT cOuLD hAvE bEeN hApPeNiNg ThErE?! It's just not believable that Asakawa and Ryūji don't immediately identify this scene as a rape. But, for some reason, they have to wait to be told what happened BY the rapist, despite seeing it with their own eyes.
[SPOILERS] Next GLARING problem: a character (the one who is raped, which 🫤) is, towards the end of this book, randomly revealed to be intersex, in a way that basically just serves as 'shock' factor and an excuse to be SO INCREDIBLY intersexphobic (while also having little to no relevance to anything else that's going on in this story)... ???
Onto the next: Asakawa's a pointless protagonist; Ryūji's a deus ex machina. Every other paragraph, it's like 💡❗ Ryūji has deduced something vital, based on NO new information, that allows the investigation to make LEAPS and BOUNDS in progress! And, he's ALWAYS right, even though he's very much taking a swing in the dark. From the second Ryūji becomes involved in the investigation, Asakawa stops thinking for himself, entirely. And, the only reason they're able to conclude the investigation in a week(ish) is that Ryūji apparently has a 100% success rate when it comes to theorising based on minimal data.
Smaller issue: I find it weird that the 'ring' is barely mentioned, meaning it has basically NO impact when you find out what it is? The 'ring' is neither here nor there in Ring.
Well done to the people who read this book, saw the bare bones of potential, then actually managed to turn it into a decent movie. They really said, 'This could be good if almost everything about it was different!', and they were 100% correct!
This source material... LOL. Nothing could have prepared me. 😕
Obligatory what I did like, so I don't feel like a Negative Nancy:
• I love how much this book goes into Sadako's powers, where they came from and how they work. And, not just this, but the detailed way it goes into the curse, how it originated, how it works, why the 'charm' to break it is what it is... REALLY cool. (I don't think this is 'missing' from the film, btw, so much as the story is so significantly altered that I think it leads you to a different, simpler conclusion.)
• Uhm...? The writing was good? The translation, too?
To get into what I did not like, I have to share some SPOILERS. There's gonna be a lot of them. Read or don't. But, I went into this book pretty blind (other than having seen the film, obviously), and I wish I'd been able to make a fully-informed decision.
[SPOILERS] The BIG, GLARING problem: the attitude this book has towards rape is SO NONCHALANT (yes, nonchalant!) it's actually, like, simultaneously heinous and laughable? To summarise...
[SPOILERS] The main choice I CANNOT understand: Asakawa is, 1/3 of the way through (Suzuki saves this for when you're already invested!), randomly revealed to KNOWINGLY be friends with a serial rapist, who literally TELLS HIM every time he rapes someone ('I did it again last night')... 😕 I continued, despite the SHOCK I was in, because I could see some thematic relevance; some parallels...
Thus, I wanted to know the fate of these men – how they'd be forced to reckon with who they were and what they'd both done. But, the narrative is COMPLETELY tolerant of Asakawa's choice to be friends with a serial rapist. So, lol? And, as for said rapist, Ryūji... Well, you'd think his crimes were petty and victimless. Or, that raping women was an odd little quirk of his... Oh, Ryūji, what are you LIKE!
[SPOILERS] At the end, it's implied that Ryūji COULD be lying, which... doesn't redeem him. It SURE doesn't redeem Asakawa, who thought Ryūji was telling the truth and 'obviously' (?!) kept his secret for decades.
[SPOILERS] Then, when another man reveals he's committed a rape, he's completely absolved of responsibility, fault or blame. The implication is that he was so ill with a virus that he couldn't control himself. ?????????
[SPOILERS] Also, the way this other rape is revealed is infuriating because The Tape literally contains an OBVIOUS rape scene; like, it's SO CLEAR what's being depicted; and Suzuki just treats you like an idiot by being like HmMmMmM wOnDeR wHaT cOuLD hAvE bEeN hApPeNiNg ThErE?! It's just not believable that Asakawa and Ryūji don't immediately identify this scene as a rape. But, for some reason, they have to wait to be told what happened BY the rapist, despite seeing it with their own eyes.
[SPOILERS] Next GLARING problem: a character (the one who is raped, which 🫤) is, towards the end of this book, randomly revealed to be intersex, in a way that basically just serves as 'shock' factor and an excuse to be SO INCREDIBLY intersexphobic (while also having little to no relevance to anything else that's going on in this story)... ???
Onto the next: Asakawa's a pointless protagonist; Ryūji's a deus ex machina. Every other paragraph, it's like 💡❗ Ryūji has deduced something vital, based on NO new information, that allows the investigation to make LEAPS and BOUNDS in progress! And, he's ALWAYS right, even though he's very much taking a swing in the dark. From the second Ryūji becomes involved in the investigation, Asakawa stops thinking for himself, entirely. And, the only reason they're able to conclude the investigation in a week(ish) is that Ryūji apparently has a 100% success rate when it comes to theorising based on minimal data.
Smaller issue: I find it weird that the 'ring' is barely mentioned, meaning it has basically NO impact when you find out what it is? The 'ring' is neither here nor there in Ring.
Well done to the people who read this book, saw the bare bones of potential, then actually managed to turn it into a decent movie. They really said, 'This could be good if almost everything about it was different!', and they were 100% correct!
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes