A review by jentang
Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura

3.5

this book mildly reminds me of murakami's norwegian wood, but if it were written in a ten times more "the alchemist" fashion. it wasn't bad; it had a decent plot that actually circled back and tied up all loose ends by the last page, and the heightened suspense maintained throughout the heart of the story certainly drew curiosity and active engagement from me as a reader. while it didn't necessarily extract much thought from me in terms of its mystery nor its elementary level depth commentary on humanity (although i was fond of shozo kuki's monologue on murder), i can still appreciate how much thought was put into creating an overall well-structured story like this one. i wasn't floored, but this is objectively an accessible read and a decent novel.