This is the first light novel for The Summer Hikaru Died, which is a novelization of a horror manga. I thought it was overall serviceable and hit all the major points of the manga. I was hoping for a big more insight into the mind of one of the main characters, Yoshiki, and while we do get a bit of it it wasn’t anything one could already glean from the manga or anime itself.

The prose was fine, but not nearly as descriptive as I thought it might be. The manga and anime have a very horrifying atmospheric art style that really builds the dread, which is by nature missing from the novelization and not adequately painted in words. I will say that the audiobook narrator knocked it out of the park. As I was listening I was like this guy has to be a voice actor primarily with the way he was able to do different character voices that weren’t annoying as hell and he is, in fact, an anime and video game voice actor. He’s also very involved in his union. Happy Labor Day y’all.

John, hope you liked this final entry. I wanted to read Yesteryear to join the unofficial book club of haters this summer but due to the agonies I didn’t get to it yesterday. I’m sure I’m gonna hate it.

Creature