Alrighty, I have finished the book.
MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGH THE END; DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED
I think I need a bit more time to process everything; I’m pretty mixed on my feelings on the book. On one hand, the twists were fun. I like the idea of the main character being some psychotic murderer, and I like Sherlock Holmes figures, so I appreciated having one who operated under the cover of a spiritual medium. I was reeaaally hoping the ending would somehow work out that he would join her and they would solve crime through committing crime (?) (hey, I’ve seen the idea successfully played with, it can work) or something, but alas.
I can appreciate the author’s attempt at setup throughout the book; issues with the main character especially (his fixation on girls, his complete and total lack of personality, etc.) I’m glad were intentional and not just poor writing. I do wish Hisui had slipped up a bit more or something, though, just to get the reader thinking.
I think ultimately what’s stopping me from recommending this as a good book is that, somehow, It was just plain boring for 90%. My god, even during the ending I couldn’t believe we were going to have to read through each case in excruciating detail as Hisui walked through each and every step as Kougetsu stood there and said “omg no way, how could you know that???” (like a true Watson, I suppose). The individual cases were not nearly interesting enough to take as much time as they did, and how they were solved, with Hisui leaving one hint and Kougetsu haing to logic his way through that were not particularly engaging, even if I can respect the idea behind it. Ultimately, this book did not need to be 500 pages long; the foreshadowing did not, in my opinion, justify it.
Perhaps I would feel different if I weren’t listening to the audiobook; the spoken word is always slower than the read. Perhaps I would feel different if I were reading this in English and could zoom through over a day or two; it’s hard to say. I can definitely see why for some people it was an awesome book, and I’m glad they had a good time; I hope the sequels/next books are just as good for them.
And even after saying all that, it’s still not my least favorite mystery club book we’ve read so far, haha. Like I said, my feelings on this were mixed. Honestly, it might be a fun read to go back to when I have time, the memories have faded a bit, and I’ve increased my JP reading speed.
Edit: Oh, I also appreciated how the cover is a reference to Hisui at the end. I already thought it was a pretty cover, and it’s nice to have some extra context around it.
Anyway, those were my immediate thoughts; I’m looking forward to hearing everyone else’s! One thing I’ve been thinking about that I hope doesn’t discourage anyone is how negative the group can end up being; especially near the end, when the number of people who’ve managed to keep up gets real small, I feel like there’s a tendency to echo chamber negative thoughts. Everyone’s welcome to their own opinion, of course, but I hope seeing all the dissatisfied club members doesn’t dissuade anyone from reading/enjoying the book.
