🏨 マスカレード・ホテル 🎭 Week 4 (ABC Reading)

:hotel: マスカレード・ホテル :performing_arts: Week 4


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Week 4 7 September 2024
Parts 7-10
End Page 179
End phrase わかった?絶対によ」
Total Pages 50
Previous week Week 3
Next week Week 5

Vocabulary

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.

  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).

  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.

Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Trigger Warnings

None known.

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Notes
山岸 尚美 やまぎし なおみ Main character
新田 浩介 にった こうすけ Main character

Further names are listed in the Vocabulary Sheet found above! Let me know if you’d like to be able to check them here as well.

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part ahead of the club
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I stopped reading the book
0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

2 Likes

This is the longest week so far at 50 pages; we’ll go back to <50 until week 9 after this. How’s everyone holding up so far?

5 Likes

It’s going well for me so far! Looking forward to the shorter chapters. I feel like it’s easier to push for 5 more pages when it finishes a chapter than when there are 20 pages to go.

5 Likes

I feel the same! Sometimes, reading multiple short chapters/parts is easier than one longer one that may not even have as many pages as the short ones total. :sweat_smile:

I think it’s something about knowing you have x pages to go until the next natural break point.

5 Likes
Chapter 7

Approximate location of the hotel (10 min walking from the Hisamatsu Police Station)
I feel like not a lot happened in this chapter.

Chapter 8

This one started to be exciting, with fake-blind lady being completely suspicious and then revealing herself! I got really scared for a second and thought she was even about to off Naomi right here and there, like with a weapon concealed in her white cane or something, but then her reveal was much less dramatic / evil. So maybe it was only a “just another story about a weird customer” after all

Chapter 9

Interesting how Nitta decided to share info with Naomi, and nice recap of what we know so far about the murders. (I also don’t think it’s super ethical / professional of him to share this information but who knows, I guess you could argue that Naomi can help the investigation so it would be unethical not to share). Was exciting to find out how they could come further with the numbers. And okay… I don’t think I would have ever came up with that myself!

New coordinates:
35.761871, 139.803944
35.648055, 139.850829
35.678738, 139.788585

(Note that the actual last point is in the river, but I guess it is a fictional place so wouldn’t be nice to pin it on an existing business)

I liked it when Naomi asked him why he was telling her all this as she was potentially a suspect too. Was just thinking about that. Would be a nice plot twist haha.

Chapter 10

Ooh interesting how this chapter is ending. Still wondering if it will be main-plot related though x)

6 Likes

it sounds like a good book, didnt expect to see a map with cords lmao

4 Likes

If you want to see more maps, please go ahead and check out my posts for アンダーグラウンド (Advanced Book Club) :joy:

5 Likes

The pace has been good so far :+1:

Spoilers for this week:

  • The resolution of the blind woman plotline was a little underwhelming for me, but I did like how matter-of-fact she was about her and her husband’s ghost sensitivity.
  • I thought it was funny that the first thing they tried with the code numbers was typing them into Google Maps just like we did :laughing:
  • Not really sure where the mystery is going from here… it seems like the police don’t really have compelling leads and are just waiting for something to happen.
4 Likes

I am behind schedule, but that has got nothing to do with the book itself. Life got in the way, that is all. :wink: Will try to catch up by next Sunday.

4 Likes

Apparently, that was a bit too optimistic. But I have at least made quite some progress and am somewhere in the middle of chapter 12 now. :grin:

4 Likes