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Review: The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike

By Cheryl Wassenaar

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In the spirit of October, we review Mariko Koike’s translated work, The Graveyard Apartment, and see what we like and don’t like about it.

It is, in fact, October. Halloween will arrive in just under two weeks. A chill has started to enter the air in places that experience winter. In other words, it is time for some spooks. For that reason, this week, we picked Mariko Koike’s The Graveyard Apartment, translated into English by Deborah Boliver Boehm, for review.

The basic plot is pretty standard for the horror genre: family moves into a too-good-to-be-true living space, and then very bad things end up happening. In this case, it’s the Kanos, Teppei, Misao, and Tamao, along with their dog, Cookie. Their new apartment building overlooks a temple, graveyard, and crematorium. Great place to raise a child, right?

Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Overall, the book’s strengths lie in its atmosphere, which Koike and the translated text weave together well. However, a few quibbles with the translation and the book’s overall pacing keep this from being a book I loved. Instead, I’ll give it a solid 3 stars. I liked it, but this likely won’t be a book I come back to every October. Let’s break it down.

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The Good

I am all for being creeped out at every turn, and this book delivers the creeps. The book even starts with the Kanos’ pet bird dying, which is a strong beginning. For those who enjoy a dose of mystery with their horror, the atmosphere will work quite well. At points, I even found myself commentating, like you would for a horror movie. For example, I caught myself asking Teppei and Misao not to do something more than once. That speaks to Koike building engagement and interaction, and that all goes back to the atmosphere and the aforementioned creeps. The descriptions of locations particularly shone for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the characters, especially seeing their different foibles. Actually, no one except for little Tamao and the dog, Cookie, actually ends up being particularly likable. However, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested to see how everyone reacted to the horrors around them and what they’d be driven to do next.

The Not-So-Good

The book was translated from Japanese, and this is the first time it’s been published in English. Translation has never been an easy business. For the most part, the English text is fine. However, it appears as though Boehm inserted explanations for certain things, like zaru soba, for international readers, into the text. Yours truly would have preferred a small footnote instead of a few additional lines. The translation also feels a bit clunky at points.

Though the book does manage to build engagement, the pacing does go quite slowly. Things build for almost the entire book before finally coming to a head at the very, very end. That doesn’t mean the ending is unsatisfying, however. (Actually, I liked the ending quite a bit.) Some events also feel like they could have been cut, including some interactions between Teppei and his brother, Tatsuji.

I also mentioned earlier that the book incorporates some mystery. Without spoiling everything, suffice it to say that very little actually gets explained in this book. I didn’t mind this and instead enjoyed connecting the dots. However, some readers may not enjoy this.

The Recommendation

Overall, The Graveyard Apartment is fine: it manages some scares and leaves the reader thinking. However, a slow start punctuated by an occasional bout of wonky translation takes it down a peg or two. This probably won’t give you any nightmares, either, which may be a bug instead of a feature for readers wanting something extra spooky for October.

Next: Review: Feedback, Mira Grant

You can find The Graveyard Apartment at your favorite purveyor of books.

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