I had to wait until this came out in paperback so it would match the previous works! Lovely day-glo colours really stand out on the shelf.
This doesn’t really alter the formula from these previous books much. We have lots of floorplans (who doesn’t love a good floor plan?) and some twists and turns in trying to link all eleven buildings that the self described “author” has been told about.
I can’t help feeling that with this book the author is far too pleased with his own cleverness in plotting and structure that he explains everything, and with great care. There’s nothing for the reader to do. Even to flick back a few pages, every reference to some previous point is accompanied by a quotation or repeated diagram.
There’s a tease in the introduction to “watch out for the common link” but it isn’t that hard to spot and gets very thoroughly explained anyway.
I did enjoy this, and I can appreciate the cleverness, and it is also interesting to get an insight into Japanese home building practices but I just felt this was too complete and neatly packaged. There is literally nothing here for the reader to do except admire the cleverness of the author. There’s no ambiguity, nuance or loose ends just a neatly packaged bundle.
Don’t try too hard Uketsu, we can live with at least some things left to our own imagination!