I have to admit, until a few hours ago I was completely unfamiliar with Uketsu. I will provide some brief context here, before getting to the book review.
Uketsu is a Japanese man who creates bizarre horror-themed Youtube videos, and now, novels. His identity remains a mystery, as he is only ever seen wearing a strange white mask. The mask reminds me of one of the characters from Twin Peaks, the so-called Jumping Man. The Jumping Man is a Black Lodge spirit, and as enigmatic as they come. But this post isn't about Twin Peaks.
Strange Houses is Uketsu's first novel. It was published in Japanese in 2021, and in an English translation in 2025. In that same year, the sequel entitled Strange Pictures was published in English, having been released in Japan in 2022. There is a third novel in this sequence called Strange Buildings, published in Japan in 2024 and in the US earlier this year, while the fourth novel, Strange Maps, has been out for a year in Japan but currently has no English translation.
Strange Houses is about an investigation into a house whose floor plan features a few oddities. This house is discovered by a friend of the initially unnamed narrator, who sends it to him because the friend has noticed a strange void space in between two of the rooms on the floor plan. The narrator, who is identified in the epilogue as Uketsu, then sends the floor plan along to a friend of his, Kurihara, who is an architect and thus might be better situated to understanding why something like this would exist.
Rather than providing an answer though, Kurihara comes back with more strangeness. Not only is the void space seemingly intentionally built into the property, but he also points out the strange, prison-cell-esque upstairs bedroom which was where the previous occupants kept their child.
But it's only when the two stories' floor plans are laid atop one another and the true nature of the seeming void space is revealed that this story begins to really take off. As the mystery begins to unfold, secrets are exposed, and the reader is left wondering who, if anyone, can truly be trusted.
I found the style of this book to be a little off-putting at first, but eventually grew to appreciate the benefits of its unique structure. The story is told through conventional narrative, but between those portions the author uses play-style dialogue, formatting, and of course the above-mentioned house floor plan diagrams to convey the narrative. Once I got used to this distinctive blend of styles, I found it quite readable and actually enjoyed how it broke up the page in a new manner.
I read this book in one sitting, and I think two factors contributed to my voracity. The first of these was the fact that, having grown up on early internet 'mystery stories' like Ted the Caver and Dionaea House and later in life devouring House of Leaves, it would be safe to say that I love a weird mystery. This one, with strange house plans and dead bodies, was very much up my alley.
The other reason is to do with the stylistic choices I mentioned above. Reading this book, one is struck by the surprising amount of white space on some pages. This is, I think, due to the necessary rendering of the large number of images on various pages, but whatever the reason, I think it makes the book read a lot more quickly.
The story was good, and the plot did a good job of pulling me along, but initially I did think it was a bit thin, lacking in emotional resonance. That changed about three-quarters of the way in, and without spoiling anything, the story of weird murders is humanized and given a tremendous amount of pathos in a really neat way.
Overall, I thought this book was a really interesting mystery/thriller and I look forward to reading the other three entries in this series.
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