Irgendwie funktionierte dieses Buch nicht so wirklich für mich. Und je länger ich darüber nachdenke und mich mit den Menschen aus der Lesegruppe darüber unterhalte, desto weniger ist es was für mich. Deshalb auch die korrigierte Anzahl Sterne. Zum einen sind da die Figuren. Keine einzige davon ist glaubhaft oder hat irgendwelche nachvollziehbare Emotionen. Weshalb diese Menschen angeblich seit Jahren befreundet sind, bleibt mir ein Rätsel. Ehrlich, es mir relativ gleichgültig, was aus ihnen geworden ist. Auch das Setting, so faszinierend es hätte sein können, blieb oberflächlich. Vielleicht wirkt es besser, wenn sich die lesenden Personen tiefer in der japanischen Mythologie auskennen, aber so wirkt das Ganze einfach hineingesetzt und platziert. Wirklicher Grusel oder Horror kam bei mir damit nicht auf. Aber vielleicht hätte ich mich dafür auch für die Figuren interessieren müssen, was, wie gesagt, nicht der Fall war.

I am a bit surprised of all the negative reviews but it seems that many people struggled with the things I actually liked about this story. One of these is the breaking of the fourth wall because the characters are well aware that they are in a horror story. Given that they decide to have a marriage in a haunted house, fully knowing how stupid this is, this kinda made sense for me and I actually found it funny because it opened the space for ironic comments on the horror genre. I overall liked the irony of the story and I honestly had fun reading it, especially because it was so self-aware. Calling out the golden boy and his whiteness and money? Stating that the protagonist has a higher chance to die because she is queer and not white? It was kinda funny. I actually like the characters the most because I just love complex relations with seething conflicts from the past and this is exactly what we have here. The dynamics between the characters are full of secrets, past grudges and repressed feelings and this helds so much potential when you put all of these characters into an extreme situation in a haunted house where all these conflicts can escalate ver quickly. And oh, how I loved that. Unfortunately, this is exactly the reason why this book was a solid 5-star-read for me until the end, because the ending kind of disappointed me. It was too abrupt, the story did not use much of this potential, and I would have wished this story to be a bit longer, to go more into the conflicts and characters.

One word: boring. I'm not the biggest fan of novellas, but look at the cover! SO promising! And the blurb sounds so intriguing. I was excited to start this book in the middle of the night, a cupt of tea in my hand while I'm lying comfortably in my bed. Unfortunately, this was a big flop. The writing was WAY too lyrical, and I have no idea what the intentions of the author were. They definitely did not manage to build up suspense. The characters were utterly horrendeous. They were arguing the entire time, and the 'horror' part of the story got completely lost inbetween their bickering.