“Jumanji but Japanese-inspired” is one of the blurbs for this horror novel by Kristen Simmons. I do not disagree with that, but I think the comic series Die (by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, published by Image Comics) is even more precise. So “Jumanji-esque Die comic book series, but Japanese-inspired”.
It is a wild ride, I must say. Different point of views take turns to narrate what is happening and never go back but forward, forward and forward in such a hectic pace that it becomes a problem after a couple of hours of reading and not knowing where to stop.
The characters are interesting and have some depth to them, although it does seem that some are more fleshed out than others. The same happens with the enemies, even if in this case I am pretty sure readers with more knowledge in Japanese mythology will not be of the same opinion. Regarding this, I found the “From the author” at the end of the book to be incredibly interesting and the culprit of me going through the rabbit hole in order to get all the mythology references I know I missed. I am discovering several creepy Japanese ghosts and meeting some I had completely forgotten about, so that is also another positive point for this book.
In fact, the only thing I disliked was reaching the final pages and realizing there was more story to be told. So, no pressure to the author, but… where’s the second part?

First book that I’ve read by Kristen and I really liked it! When I saw the cover, I knew I needed to read this book. It definitely gave Jumanji vibes. I couldn’t put this book down. It was so different then the books I’ve been reading recently and I really enjoyed it!

Thank you NetGalley, Tor/Forge and Kristen Simmons for the ARC!