You could just about smell the cream on the lip of Phillip's grin, though. I tried not to cringe, to wince, beset by a zoetrope of sudden emotions. I hadn't spoke to Lin since before I checked myself into the hospital for terminal ennui, exhaustion so acute it couldn't be sanitized with sleep, couldn't be remedied by anything but a twist of rope tugged tight. The doctors kept me for six days and then sent me home, pockets stuffed with pills and appointments and placards advocating the commandments of safer living. I spent six months doing the work, a shut-in committed to the betterment of self, university and my study of Japanese literature, both formal and otherwise, shelved, temporarily.

From what I can gather, this is a fairly divisive book among the horror literature circles, and the biggest complaint that I repeatedly see is about the writing and vocabulary. It is packed with more figurative language than you'd expect and has a lot of word choices that feel like someone was either studying for the SAT or just wanted a sponsorship from a thesaurus publisher. There's also a lot of unexplained Japanese words thrown in which might be confusing to anyone who's not at least a level five weeaboo. But it is definitely unique, and I don't think that's a reason to shy away from this book.

At it's core, there's an interesting story at play. Five long-time friends, with a LOT of messy relationship drama between them, have a history of going to haunted places and looking for spooky shit. The guy with the 1% parents manages to rent out an entire abandoned feudal Japanese mansion (and the other characters do comment on just how insane that is, don't worry), and they all gather together as young adults so two of them can get married in this place that was supposedly haunted by a bride whose groom died before he could get to the wedding 1,000 years ago. Predictably, hijinks ensue.

Honestly, the dialogue feels real and flows naturally, and the characters for the most part behave the way you'd expect them to, even when the supernatural stuff starts going down. The prose reads almost like a writing assignment, like someone was given a prompt to write a ghost story and make it as flowery and over-the-top as possible. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because I don't think nearly as many people would have even heard about this book were it not known for being so distinctive.

This book did exactly what it set out to do, and it did it in just the right amount of length. I don't regret giving it my time, and if nothing else I appreciate having a new go-to example of ~purple prose~ in my back pocket to reference on the fly. Don't be scared away by other reviews you might see on this one.