A review by gxuosi
Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe

5.0

i cannot even begin to put into words the sheer nauseating, bone chilling terror i felt reading this. no horror novel has upended my mental state as much as this less than 200 page foray into a maybe-hikikomori, fanatic obsessive, toxic masculinity riddled teenage boy's life. at no point can you believe a word haruo says because he's even less reliable as a narrator than holden caulfield. and at no point can you risk not believing him due to the gravity of what he's planning. the precision as we bend back and forth through moments of clarity and fantasy without ever getting a sense that any of it isn't true is so seamless that i had entirely forgotten until the very end that haruo is nowhere near a trustworthy narrator. i've put all of my most sincere effort into this review and it's still not enough because i don't have the words for it.