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A review by heykellyjensen
Strange Pictures by Uketsu
Uketsu's debut mystery horror revolves around nine mysterious drawings. The setup begins with one drawing, a mental health expert explaining that it shows a young girl whose life has been challenging but who shows hope for the future. That young girl, as readers will learn, is the main character throughout the several chapters, even when not directly named as such.
This book is put together like several short stories, but they are all part of a larger, interconnected narrative. Readers work alongside a journalist an amateur sleuth who wants to understand an image drawn by an artist who'd been a murder victim. What was he trying to say in the image? It didn't look at all like the work of a professional. But then again, it was drawn for a reason and in the last minutes of his life. It must mean something.
But it's not just that journalist seeking answers. So, too, is a college student who has been sent a blog that shows the story of a young man trying to understand what happened to his wife. She died in childbirth, leaving him alone with their son. But she had also left behind drawings that he knew meant something. The current-day college student would spend years putting the pieces together from this blog.He would years later encounter that journalist and the two of them would corroborate the truth behind those strange pictures.
Readers who want an innovative work of horror or mystery will find a lot to like here. Is it scary? Not really. Is it mysterious? Yes. But it's the fact a story can be told through a handful of odd images and seemingly disparate narratives that makes it compelling and engaging.
I like east Asian horror a lot, especially j-horror. This takes some of the tropes and plays with them in a clever way. The translation work is done very well, and while I don't think this will have the same steam with western readers as it has in Japan, horror *and* mystery fans will want to try this one out. It's a speedy read and comes in under 250 pages.
This book is put together like several short stories, but they are all part of a larger, interconnected narrative. Readers work alongside a journalist an amateur sleuth who wants to understand an image drawn by an artist who'd been a murder victim. What was he trying to say in the image? It didn't look at all like the work of a professional. But then again, it was drawn for a reason and in the last minutes of his life. It must mean something.
But it's not just that journalist seeking answers. So, too, is a college student who has been sent a blog that shows the story of a young man trying to understand what happened to his wife. She died in childbirth, leaving him alone with their son. But she had also left behind drawings that he knew meant something. The current-day college student would spend years putting the pieces together from this blog.
Readers who want an innovative work of horror or mystery will find a lot to like here. Is it scary? Not really. Is it mysterious? Yes. But it's the fact a story can be told through a handful of odd images and seemingly disparate narratives that makes it compelling and engaging.
I like east Asian horror a lot, especially j-horror. This takes some of the tropes and plays with them in a clever way. The translation work is done very well, and while I don't think this will have the same steam with western readers as it has in Japan, horror *and* mystery fans will want to try this one out. It's a speedy read and comes in under 250 pages.