I stumbled across this book on a list of best Japanese horror novels, and although I thoroughly enjoyed three time I spent reading this I cannot agree that it is a horror.

This book tells eleven different story stories, each of which intertwine with at least one other story. Each tale in this novel shares the same theme: death. This ranges from a child suffocating while hiding in a fridge in a dumping ground, a man being killed and buried by his wife, and an old age pensioner dying peacefully in their sleep.

None of the stories are particularly updating, despite the topic, but they are definitely thought provoking and done are slightly humorous.

Something I find to be a recurring style of writing with this author, is how the reader spend a lot of their time wondering did something actually happen or was it the overactive imagination of the protagonist. I experienced this in some of this books stories, especially in the story about the old woman growing carrots, and the bagmaker. The main difference in this book when compared to other books by the author is that due to the intertwining relationship these stories have with each other, the reader actually gets full closure on each story and a full confirmation of what was real and what the outcomes were.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and would highly recommend it to anyone who is in the mood for a weird novel that can be read in a day, and also to anyone who wants to read a book that contains the quote “Give my regards to the tiger”.

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