Strange Pictures

Strange Pictures

Uketsu

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

The spine-tingling bestseller that has taken Japan by storm—an eerie fresh take on horror for fans of Hidden Pictures and Junji Ito, in which a series of seemingly innocent pictures draws you into a disturbing web of unsolved mysteries and shattered psyches. An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance. . . . A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning. A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message. A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality. Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.


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  • leahcrosss
    Mar 09, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

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  • Une.ame.livresque
    Mar 09, 2025
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  • lizetteratura
    Mar 05, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    talk about things coming full circle 

    Strange Pictures is a horror mystery novel centred around a collection of unsettling drawings. The story opens with a professor with experience as a practicing psychologist presenting a picture created by a young girl who was a victim of her mother's domestic abuse. The subsequent tales in the novel delve into the hidden truths surrounding hand-drawn images. The first stroy tells of five sketches made by a woman shortly before her death during childbirth. The second story centres around a boy and an unusual kindergarten picture he draws as a Mother's Day present. The third recounts the final artwork produced by a high school art teacher prior to his murder. The last story uncovers the reality behind the picture presented by the professor at the start of the novel and offers a new look into the drawing with chilling conclusions. All of these stories are intertwined, in the end leading to one singular character.

    While you can say some circumstances are a bit far-fetched, I still enjoyed this novel; it was really fun to read, to play detective, and to have my jaw drop every once in a while.

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