Inhae's blog

Ring of the Day – 賴以威

I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to… I was drawn to the setting in the Taipei metro, because for some reasons, I really love stories that take place in the metro, and I was hoping that the stories would use the particularities of the lines or stations in the plot. And they did to some extent, but the metro as a setting is not as relevant for some stories as I had hoped to. Maybe I had unfair expectations though.

The stories are all romances, and this alone is not enough to grab my interest, so I ended up only really loving the first one which has a very unique and interesting plot, while the others were not as compelling to me.

I loved how the stories echo one another though and how the characters cross paths.

嘎啦 – 姜泰宇 (敷米漿)

I love watching horror movies, and I love horror as a genre, but I usually much prefer watching a horror film or series than reading a horror book. I did love this one though, but I must admit that the second part was quite hard to read in Chinese for me.

The book is told in three different timelines and the first one was by far my favourite. We still don’t know anything about the curse and rituals, so we discover everything with the characters for the first time, whereas in the other parts we kind of know what will probably happen.

There is a film adaptation, but from the trailer, it looks like it’s just focused on the last part that plays in present days? I’ll watch it if I have the opportunity.

子彈是餘生 – 寺尾哲也

This book has been translated into English and I feel such a strong disconnect with people who heartily recommend it, because I think that a book where suicide is idealised or presented as something to achieve should need a content warning. I have self-harm a lot in the past, and even though Jie-Heng’s situation is different, I still prefer to avoid reading about anything that would make self-destruction appealing again.

So I kind of regret reading it, though I did like the narration and the structure, I liked the characters and I found it was an interesting experience to share a chapter with these unknown narrators, guessing who they are and how their narration finds its place in the whole story.

学生街の殺人 – 東野圭吾

This is one of Keigo Higashino’s first novels, and it’s funny because the other Higashino I read this year was one of his latest novels.

And I have the same critic for both lol.

They were both much too long, the plot wasn’t complex enough to sustain 500+ pages. In this one in particular, the core of the book felt quite empty. I wasn’t able to feel any interest for the characters because I felt that even after spending so much time with them, I didn’t really know them.

The end was excellent though, I don’t regret reading it.

七十號，你的鳥歪了 – 顏瑜

Keeping the best one for the end, 七十號，你的鳥歪了 has been a pleasant surprise. When it comes to fiction, I really love anything police-related. I much prefer reading police procedurals rather than fictions featuring private detectives. So I was delighted to learn about Taiwan police education and the daily life of a new student at Taiwan Police College through this novel. The author has graduated from this school and the novel feels like a very valuable insight into this world.

The characters have a lot of depth, and the plot really took me by surprise. I thought the core of the book would be the description of a student’s life (and this alone would have been great), but the story then takes us into political scheming and intrigues while also reflecting on the police education system.

I’m afraid that people who are not interested in reading BL might ignore this book because of the cover. It’s really a great book, I highly recommend it!