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ratstick's review against another edition
5.0
Just as good as the first time and I need to keep reading the sequels.
sarahetcetera's review against another edition
4.0
the horror of spending your last days on earth trying to figure out how to live (and kinda failing). Asakawa, an absent father/husband, realizes the importance of family now that he only has one week to live, and proceeds to become an extreme version of himself, seeing his wife/baby for 0 seconds for the rest of the week . even goes into the eye of a typhoon to figure shit out with his old buddy, an (alleged) monster (his words).
this book is not really scary, just sad, horrifying only in its weirdness.
have to watch the movie(s) again, but from what I remember it leans more into the absolutely bananas scary shit instead of the sad stories of The Most Beautiful Sadako and her eerie family.
this book is not really scary, just sad, horrifying only in its weirdness.
have to watch the movie(s) again, but from what I remember it leans more into the absolutely bananas scary shit instead of the sad stories of The Most Beautiful Sadako and her eerie family.
peyt149's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
pensnfeathers's review
3.0
Well, Ring was exactly "pretty good."
My first experience with horror as a media genre came 20 years ago when I saw "The Ring" with my friends at the movie theater. I cannot express enough how much that movie terrorized me. Ten-year-old me was traumatized. I slept in my parents' bedroom for several days afterwards, unwilling to be alone in the dark.
"Ring" the book feels much less like a horror novel and much more like a thriller. Part of that is, I'm sure my age. Horror movies and books do not scare 30-year-old me the way they scared 10-year-old me. But even so, I've read and enjoyed a lot of horror novels and a lot of thrillers, and this feels more like a thriller in almost every way.
That's not to say that it's bad. Like I said, it's pretty good. But a horror story written like a thriller kind of messes with the pacing. I think that's because Suzuki spends a good bit of time writing slow burn suspenseful horror scenes while pacing the book as a whole as a race against time. It usually works just fine, but when it doesn't it just doesn't feel right.
There's also a ton of very casual reference to sexual assault in this book. That actually doesn't bother me at all when it's purposeful, but in this case it mostly does very, very little for the plot. I'm willing to excuse that as a trope of early 90s Japanese horror literature, but it does stand out and that aspect of the novel ages pretty poorly.
Still, overall it's an excellent story sufficiently told. Exactly the kind of book that I say I'll read the sequel to, add it to my list, and then perhaps get to it a year or two down the road, or perhaps not.
My first experience with horror as a media genre came 20 years ago when I saw "The Ring" with my friends at the movie theater. I cannot express enough how much that movie terrorized me. Ten-year-old me was traumatized. I slept in my parents' bedroom for several days afterwards, unwilling to be alone in the dark.
"Ring" the book feels much less like a horror novel and much more like a thriller. Part of that is, I'm sure my age. Horror movies and books do not scare 30-year-old me the way they scared 10-year-old me. But even so, I've read and enjoyed a lot of horror novels and a lot of thrillers, and this feels more like a thriller in almost every way.
That's not to say that it's bad. Like I said, it's pretty good. But a horror story written like a thriller kind of messes with the pacing. I think that's because Suzuki spends a good bit of time writing slow burn suspenseful horror scenes while pacing the book as a whole as a race against time. It usually works just fine, but when it doesn't it just doesn't feel right.
There's also a ton of very casual reference to sexual assault in this book. That actually doesn't bother me at all when it's purposeful, but in this case it mostly does very, very little for the plot. I'm willing to excuse that as a trope of early 90s Japanese horror literature, but it does stand out and that aspect of the novel ages pretty poorly.
Still, overall it's an excellent story sufficiently told. Exactly the kind of book that I say I'll read the sequel to, add it to my list, and then perhaps get to it a year or two down the road, or perhaps not.
naomishutup's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
joelazose's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
mdominiak3's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
notenchanted's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0