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A review by stephilica
Suspension: Kubitsuri High School - The Nonsense User's Disciple by NISIOISIN
4.0
This book is almost half the length of the previous entries in the series, and it worked to the story's detriment, though the narrative itself is complete.
Ikkun is a great narrator as always; his projection onto others and blossoming guilt mean that even if he's a "non-actor," as Aikawa goads, he has loads of personality. Furthermore, Aikawa's character is developed past the "cool and mysterious woman who explains things in the epilogue." Giving Aikawa a more active role in the plot and demonstrating the ways she and Ikkun complement each other fleshed both of them out.
This locked room is easier to guess than the others, but the mystery involves a discussion of "loneliness" that takes the foundation built in the previous novel and expands on it. A motif question is, "Who is lonelier, people who trust or those who trust no one?" Is Aikawa the one who is fundamentally lonely, or is Ikkun? Motive is remarkably unclear, and this is where the novel's weakness is clearest. In attempting to make a statement about how no one can truly understand the reasons behind what others do, the novel left an incomplete and unsatisfying aftertaste in the end. It's hard to pity the culprit, but also hard to blame. Perhaps the ambiguity of the motive was the point. "It's all nonsense," as Ikkun would say.
Ikkun is a great narrator as always; his projection onto others and blossoming guilt mean that even if he's a "non-actor," as Aikawa goads, he has loads of personality. Furthermore, Aikawa's character is developed past the "cool and mysterious woman who explains things in the epilogue." Giving Aikawa a more active role in the plot and demonstrating the ways she and Ikkun complement each other fleshed both of them out.
This locked room is easier to guess than the others, but the mystery involves a discussion of "loneliness" that takes the foundation built in the previous novel and expands on it. A motif question is, "Who is lonelier, people who trust or those who trust no one?" Is Aikawa the one who is fundamentally lonely, or is Ikkun? Motive is remarkably unclear, and this is where the novel's weakness is clearest. In attempting to make a statement about how no one can truly understand the reasons behind what others do, the novel left an incomplete and unsatisfying aftertaste in the end. It's hard to pity the culprit, but also hard to blame. Perhaps the ambiguity of the motive was the point. "It's all nonsense," as Ikkun would say.