Remina by Junji Ito

 Holy crap. Ito is a force of nature. To say that Junji Ito is the "Japanese Stephen King" doesn't give Ito his full justice. The layers of horror in Remina are breathtaking to experience. The story is disturbing. The people are disturbing. The visuals are out of this world. The book itself being its tale in media res, then jumps backwards and proceeds to catch back up to itself. In some books or movies, I find this style sloppy or formulaic. Here, it isn't. Ito uses it brilliantly to shock and pull you into the story and its world. Absolutely fantastic. 

The only criticism I can level against the book is that the main character, Remina, is underdeveloped. She is subjugated to a series of trying ordeals, but her personality is minimally shown or investigated. This is not a huge knock against the book as a whole as she is set up more of a foil against whom all of the other characters are measured and contrasted. 

I've been saving Junji Ito's books to read down the road so that I know I have something good and truly scary to anticipate. This book proves that I was right...but also wrong to wait so long. I'll be starting in on his other works a lot sooner than I had planned. Goodbye sleep ever again. 

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of this title from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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