At Night, I Become a Monster

I liked the book and its idea, but I didn't like the execution. It felt pretty slow at times and there were a lot of useless dialogue. The main character was really annoying. I also didn't like how to main character was able to think so much about what he should do before doing anything, but was also dense af at times for no reason. Anyways, I didn't like him. Yano though, I thought she was nice. Though, I will admit, she turned out to be way more thoughtful about things than I first expected. Oh, there were a few unanswered questions why I just don't understand why those questions were brought up in the first place if they were never going to be answered. Overall, it was an okay read. I didn't dislike it, but I also didn't have a lot of fun reading it. But I was able to kind of binge it which says that I did enjoy reading at least a little bit more than just “okay”. It was my first time reading a Japanese novel/light novel type book too so that's that. Anyways, I rate it a ratin 3.5/5 stars.

So the theme of this book is bullying, told from the perspective of a middle school student named Adachi. The one receiving bullying is his classmate, Yano Satsuki. Adachi himself is a bystander for the most part, which links to my biggest problem with this book. I hate it when a story that centers around bullying ends without a resolution, and that is exactly the case here.

Honestly, I might have enjoyed this a little more if only the main character isn't so indecisive. Adachi only makes a decision at the end, so the rest of the book is him sailing through all sorts of emotions while doing absolutely nothing about Yano's situation. It's super frustrating, and the fact that the depiction of bullying is so realistic only made it worse for me.

Still, the writing is so good in the poetic, introspective way. It conveys the conflicting thoughts and emotions really well, and it does show the message of how much of a monster humans can be. It just doesn't have a proper conclusion, so do keep that in mind if you're planning to pick this up.