Goth: Wristcut Jiken
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This book does not really have a connected story, more like smaller stories that use the same characters. One of the few horror light novels around, it tries its best at trying to show disturbing imagery through its pages, yes, no picturesーand it works.

There are only two characters that are important within the story, a boy and a girl. Generally, the story involves them either finding or getting involved in murders. However, their true thoughts are almost always hidden, especially the girl. Implications through perspective changes and behaviour makes you take another look at what exactly is going on and who the main characters really ... are. Things always seem a little off. It's this mystery combined with the horror elements that creates a heavy atmosphere and keeps you on your toes. But at the same time, it goes at a slow pace.

The book takes its time when describing scenes and the thoughts of characters and sometimes you forget that you're even reading a horror book. It's not like one of those action novels with fights and such, it's mostly just description and that sets it apart from other horror books. It feels... fresh. New. Gripping!

A nice bonus is the gore involved; it's shown (through words) as pretty extreme. Bodies are viscerally described and, when someone dies, their final moments are captured in full detail. The description itself is robotic though not in the bad way. It was as if whoever were describing these terrible things had no emotion within them; that it didn't matter at all if something died. Instead of it being shock value, it's just disturbing.

It isn't your average horror book. It feels more emotionless, slower and much more disturbing. That's why it deserves a read. It's a shame how few have read this!

I think I can see what the author was trying to do – to write about people that are so removed from the mental state of regular people their actions seem alien and unnatural to the reader. Small problem though – the author forgot to make this alternative interesting to read about.

You see, while the protagonist is interested in bizarre criminal cases, he’s not interested in actually doing anything with them. So most of the stories don’t get anything that feels like a conclusion. “I have deduced that you’re the culprit! Don’t care tho, go on with your business or whatever.” Now of course this ... goes perfectly well together with the theme of inhuman/sociopathic mind. However, the reader is a regular human, and this non-conclusive take just gets quite irritating quickly. I found myself asking what even the point is. Why should I care about what happens next if it doesn’t get really concluded.

On the topic of deduction, the protagonist pulls their out of their ass most of the time. You don’t get hints as a reader, you just get the solution MacGyvered together with no way the guy managed to get to the conclusion unless he’s able to take a look at the script of the book itself. So yeah, one of the major aspect of mysteries – trying find out the solution yourself? Absent here. And while two of the cases had interesting twist, ultimately the lack of proper conclusion and lack of hints made this collection of stories unenjoyable overall.