Book Review: Strange Houses

There are no spoilers in the below review!

One of the most unique and clever books I’ve read in quite some time is Japanese author, Uketsu’s 2021 book, Strange Houses (Jim Rion’s English translation came out in 2025). Uketsu, like his book, is an enigma giving rise to more questions: His identity is unknown, and he appears on YouTube in a white mask and black body stocking with his voice digitally altered. His book is told as if based upon a true story, like he’s interviewing the characters involved in the story to uncover the horror and mystery of it all.

Strange Houses uses the conceit of the odd and discomforting floor plans of three houses to tell its story. Those floor plans give rise to wilder and horrifying speculative theories involving mutilation, child murderers, and generational trauma and rituals. In the way the floor plans are used, and as Uketsu’s dialogue with the characters in the book elucidate various theories, Strange Houses reminded me of an more sinister mashup of an Agatha Christie novel, with the boardgame Clue. But of course, given the author and the Japan setting, there is also the influence of Japanese culture, norms, and family customs that are twisted to exacerbate the unfolding horror.

Given Uketsu’s interjection into the story as the author retelling the story he’s hearing, there is the quality of the unreliable narrator to consider as well. Can we trust Uketsu to convey the story accurately? Omissions can be telling, albeit it can be difficult to ascertain what has been omitted in the first place with such a riddle, labyrinth-like story. Furthermore, we don’t know Uketsu’s motive other than being an inquisitive author.

It was clever the way Uketsu used the floor plans and his friend, the architect Kurihara, to start from absurd speculation to grounded reality. When first looking at the floor plans, it seems like you’re looking upon a normal house and a normal structure. But like the book itself, the more you look and the more Uketsu explains through Kurihara’s expertise, the more you realize what’s amiss and unsettling about it. Then, if you’re me, you find yourself going back and forth between the floor plans and the latest revelation wondering how you missed it. Granted, the leaps from what could be innocuous explanations of the floorplans to nefarious ones is extraordinary.

Uketsu’s book achieved two rare feats for me: a.) making me want to present this review to you as spoiler-free as possible, so you can enjoy the experience; and b.) re-read it so I can understand it anew and find those aforementioned omissions. Perhaps what most intrigued me is that I was skeptical of Kurihara’s motives and it was him at the end who cast doubt upon Uketsu’s reliability as a narrator. That itself could speak to Kurihara’s ulterior motives or sincerity, depending on how you look at it (nefariously or innocuously).

I can’t wait to read more of Uketsu’s work, though. The mysterious, unidentified author is not just a gimmick. There is real craft at work here and it impressed me.