These books were, quite frankly, terrifying. They lulled in the middle before exploding at the end forcing readers to read late into the night in their haste to reach the end. The Suicide Forest kept my interest piqued almost start to finish.

The downside to the pair of them, especially reading them one after another, desperately starving for more after the conclusion of Suicide Forest, is the formulaic outline of the stories. I understand writers exhibiting a characteristic style recognizable as them throughout their works but these two were plug and play: new location, new characters, same basic background and storyline. This made the second story tougher to read through the lull and resulted in my skipping ahead to the blockbuster ending.

That being said, I have to hand it to Jeremy Bates, his writing made me feel the panic and claustrophobia of being stuck in a narrow passge in the catacombs (even now, months later, seriously, breathing is harder) and I was in Aokigahara, amidst the green, with his characters stumbling through the roots and knots of the forest floor. (Side note, really eager to see the movie for comparison.) ( )