Bin 11/19

 

The Devotion of Suspect X

I’ve read the entire book before. Many people consider it the peak of Keigo Higashino’s fusion of storytelling and deduction, but personally, I enjoyed Journey Under the Midnight Sun and After School even more. 

The crime itself is simple, and the answer is already hinted at in the title. The whole narrative unfolds like a neat mathematical theorem: the mother and daughter commit a murder, and Ishigami helps them escape legal consequences. What’s truly beautiful isn’t the theorem itself, but the elegance of its proof. The most thrilling aspect of the novel is how Higashino positions emotion as the single flaw in an otherwise perfect formula: mathematics is perfect, but human feelings are an uncontrollable variable.

This sets up a stunning moral dilemma at the end. Yasuko’s inescapable guilt becomes something Ishigami can never quantify or predict—no matter how gifted he is, he can’t calculate her final decision.

To me, the core of the story was never “Who is the murderer?” but rather: Why would someone devote themselves so completely to another person’s existence? That fatalistic devotion lifts the novel beyond ordinary mystery fiction and gives it a rare literary weight.

Uzumaki

I’ve known about Junji Ito and his works for years. The first piece of his I read was The Snail, a short chapter connected to the Uzumaki universe.

What sets Ito’s horror apart isn’t jump scares—it’s the way the eeriness seeps into everyday life. Uzumaki embodies this perfectly. The manga is visually overwhelming; just the first forty pages made me feel physically dizzy. 

Strange Houses

This novel genuinely scared me.

Unlike Uzumaki, which distorts physical space to create horror, this story leans toward psychological terror. While reading it, I kept thinking about Edvard Munch’s The Scream. The loosening of logical reality, the eerie border between dream and consciousness, and the characters’ mounting unease all echoed that painting’s distorted image.

More than fear, the story produces a kind of indescribable anxiety—a tension you can’t quite locate but can’t shake off either.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I’m not very familiar with time-travel stories, but I really enjoyed the pacing of this one. As I read, I found myself asking: If we could revisit our regrets, would we really choose differently?

I also realized something important: maybe people don’t long for the past because they want to change history—they want to understand who they were. Yet we’re all destined to confront loss, misunderstandings, farewells, and regrets that can never be undone. I believe this novel gently nudges readers toward facing their emotions in the present moment rather than escaping into fantasy.

Overall, I really like the message it delivers.

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

I’m very familiar with this story—I’ve watched the animated film twice. It moved me deeply each time.

There’s another Japanese anime with a similar emotional core: Your Lie in April. Both works revolve around illness, secrets, and adolescence. They are both tender yet devastating.

This novel helps readers understand life and death through the connection of two souls, and that alone is powerful. But beyond the emotional impact, it also forces readers to confront the overlooked details of their own lives.