予言の島 🌅 👻 Spooky Summer Reading Club

[omk3]

Join the Halloween/ Spooky Summer Reading Club Here!
View this book on Natively!

Welcome to the 予言の島 Book Club!

View the nomination post here!

Where to purchase

Amazon · Bookwalker

Discussion Threads and Reading Schedule

We are aiming to read this during the summer, but without following a strict schedule. All discussions will take place in this thread, so please make liberal use of spoiler tags, and make sure to clearly mention which part you’ve read so that other readers can know if they can open your spoiler tags yet or not.

For those of us who do better with a stricter schedule, I’ve drawn a tentative schedule spanning the months of July and August. Feel free to stick to this schedule or read at your own pace. (The pages are calculated from percentages on a book of 352 pages - they may be wildly inaccurate)

	Start Date	Reading	End Percentage	Approximate Pages
Week 1	July 1	プロローグ and 第一章	15%	46
Week 2	July 8	from 第二章一 to the end of 第二章三	24%	28
Week 3	July 15	from 第二章四 to the end of 第二章	32%	28
Week 4	July 22	from 第三章一 to the end of 第三章三	43%	39
Week 5	July 29	from 第三章四 to the end of 第三章	55%	42
Week 6	August 5	from 第四章一 to the end of 第四章四	62%	25
Week 7	August 12	from 第四章五 to the end of 第四章	71%	32
Week 8	August 19	from 第五章一 to the end of 第五章四	83%	42
Week 9	August 26	from 第五章五 to the end of エピローグ	95%	42

For those who won’t follow a strict schedule, I’m listing all chapters and subsections below so that they’re easy to find. (I don’t have the paperback so I’ll leave the page information blank. If someone has it and wants to provide page numbers I’ll be happy to add them to the table)

Section	Start Percentage	End Percentage	Start Page	End Page	Page Count
プロローグ	2%	4%
第一章
一	4%	6%
二	6%	8%
三	8%	10%
四	10%	14%
五	14%	15%
第二章
一	16%	18%
二	18%	21%
三	21%	24%
四	24%	28%
五	28%	30%
六	30%	32%
第三章
一	32%	35%
二	35%	39%
三	39%	43%
四	43%	46%
五	46%	51%
六	51%	55%
第四章
一	55%	57%
二	57%	59%
三	59%	61%
四	61%	62%
五	62%	66%
六	66%	68%
七	68%	71%
第五章
一	71%	75%
二	75%	78%
三	78%	80%
四	80%	83%
五	83%	87%
六	87%	90%
七	90%	92%
エピローグ	93%	95%

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for everything that might be considered a spoiler as we’ll be all reading at different speeds, and make sure to mention which section your post is about.
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
• To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Member List

Are you planning to read 予言の島 with the book club?

• I am planning to read this book
• I am currently reading this book
• I have finished this book
• I don’t plan to read this book
• I dropped the book and don’t plan to return
• I have stopped reading, but I will return at some point

If so, which version will you be reading?

• eBook
• Paperback

Character List

(feel free to edit - remember to use spoiler tags where appropriate)

Name	Reading	1st appearance	Description
比呂	ひろ	プロローグ	boy
須永	すなが	プロローグ	ryokan owner
山下光輝	やました・こうき	プロローグ	one year under 比呂, left the island
	サチか	プロローグ	the psychic’s granddaughter
大原宗作	おおはら・そうさく	第一章一	tried to commit suicide
天宮淳	あまみや・じゅん	第一章一
岬春夫	みさき・はるお	第一章二	itinerant; 淳 and 宗作’s friend
藍ちゃん	あいちゃん	第一章二	春夫’s girlfriend
宇津木幽子	うつぎ・ゆうこ	第一章三	psychic
虚霊子	うつろ・れいこ	第二章一	fortune-teller
	サナエ	第二章二	old lady, island resident
麻生	あそう	第二章三	guesthouse owner
古畑	ふるはた	第二章三	prominent island figure
遠藤晶子	えんどう・あきこ	第二章四	tourist
遠藤伸太郎	えんどう・しんたろう	第二章四	晶子’s son
江原数美	えはら・かずみ	第二章四	brown-haired traveller
橘昭二	たちばな・あきじ	第二章四	resident policeman
山田タミ江	やまだ・たみえ	第二章四	aka 虚霊子
	コズエさん	第三章一	works at the 連絡所

[wiersm]

@omk3

The books

I’m guessing that this is a typo, or are we reading multiple books? (Although I saw that this is a must-read-twice book, so I guess you could see it as two books in one ).

I would really like to join this because it looks so cool, but I’m not sure yet if I can… There are too many book clubs reading cool stuff this summer!!!

[omk3]

One book only
It was a typo, but it was hard for me to find as I had already edited it out when I added a tentative schedule. Good eye!

[pocketcat]

Thanks for the schedule! I’ll do my best to keep up - I am rather busy right now but schedules tend to work wonders for keeping me on task

[brrricane]

It’s been a while since I’ve read with one of the book clubs but this sounds right up my alley. Looking forward to it.

It also happened to be on sale on Bookwalker and I had coins expiring at the end of the month. I shouldn’t start yet another book though…

[omk3]

Just a heads-up that the poll was wiped clean when polls were resurrected from a backup to save multi-vote polls that were all messed up.

If you like, please vote again to note your participation.

@mods Sorry to bring this up again, but the recent action to resurrect multi-vote data from a backup may have fixed older polls, but it destroyed all recent ones, even single-vote polls that had been so far unaffected.

[meagstudies]

There’s no “maybe” option in the poll, so this is just me saying my “I am planning to read this book” vote is actually a “maybe” vote. I’d like to read it at my own pace, but I may skip this club due to difficulty + many other clubs I’m reading along with.

[omk3]

Plans get derailed all the time anyway
And reading at your own pace is encouraged, especially if you feel you can’t or don’t want to keep up with the (admittedly pretty tight) club schedule.

[Nicole216]

Ah, I so wish I could join. It does sound really interesting. But it’s still above my level at the moment So I will just add it to my wishlist/to read list for now.

I just noticed that the bookwalker link in the main/opening post does not work (seems like it is no link at all? At least for me on mobile it doesn’t do anything). Since no one else mentioned it until now, I thought I might as well

[omk3]

Thanks for mentioning it, I was wondering how come no one had clicked it at all.
Fixed it.

Feel free to come back later when you feel ready. The thread will stay open and everyone is welcome to post at any time!

[TofuguKyle]

Thanks, @omk3

Forgive my ignorance here, but is this issue still happening, or was it more of a one-time effect from the data resurrection?

Once you get back to us, we’ll write to Discourse Support to see if either something can be done or something needs to change to fix polls going forward.

If you can tag the mods in your response, that would be great!

[omk3]

Hi Kyle, @mods

It looks like it’s a one time effect from the data resurrection. Any poll data after the backup date was wiped at the time of the data resurrection. I suppose this was unavoidable for multi-vote polls, especially open ones that had votes both from before and after that date (2023-6-26 01:51:54 UTC), but single-vote polls had their votes after that date wiped too. Single-vote polls had no problems at all before the data resurrection happened so I was very surprised to see them affected by this.

[NicoleIsEnough]

Started a day early because my reading is all over the place anyways and I‘ll be busy over the weekend so there’s that. Here’s some thoughts:

プロローグ

Found the text quite easy to read (and yay, Kansai-ben, I guess?) but it was surprisingly hard for me to interpret the scene - went through several re-interpretations which was fun. Still not perfectly settled on what this all entails, so I will not talk about it here yet.

What age do you think our protag is? Initially I thought like 10, maybe, but his interest in the girl might indicate he‘s like 14 or so?

[pocketcat]

@NicoleIsEnough

Found the text quite easy to read (and yay, Kansai-ben, I guess?)

I find Kansai-ben such a pain to read I chapter one there’s a decent amount dialect dialogue and I was slogging through it

@NicoleIsEnough

What age do you think our protag is? Initially I thought like 10, maybe, but his interest in the girl might indicate he‘s like 14 or so?

I wasn’t really thinking on it but my impression was younger, maybe late 小 of early 中. Also there was some line (would have to go search for it) about him being the only one or something? I’ll look for it later but there was a rather cryptic one or two sentences that raised my eyebrow

[pocketcat]

@pocketcat

Also there was some line (would have to go search for it) about him being the only one or something? I’ll look for it later but there was a rather cryptic one or two sentences that raised my eyebrow

この島にはもう、自分一人しかない。僕一人しかー
「地縛霊ですかね」
スタッフが聞く声で比呂は我に返った。

That was the bit. I was like, “…is this kid a ghost?”

[brrricane]

I was also thinking the kid might be a ghost at first too based on the way he was acting . It doesn’t seem likely now but…
I’m a bit confused by that line too since it seemed like some of the other people there were from the island. Maybe he feels alone because something happened to his parents/friend(s)?

[omk3]

Just read the prologue.

Thoughts on prologue

@NicoleIsEnough

it was surprisingly hard for me to interpret the scene - went through several re-interpretations which was fun.

Me too. What I settled on is this: There’s this ryokan on an island, and they’re currently filming one of those ghost-hunting shows. The old lady has a head-ache and feels a presence, etc etc. All this happens in a staged manner, after the countdown. The island inhabitants admit (on camera) there’s an evil spirit in the mountains that’s supposed to want to kill everyone. It’s unclear whether it’s all fake or not, but the boy was surprised when he realized that his own parents are already suffering from that curse? The girl, who’s the medium’s granddaughter, is convinced that it’s all staged, but maybe not in this case. And from the adults’ overheard conversation it seems they may be worried?

@pocketcat

@NicoleIsEnough

What age do you think our protag is?

I wasn’t really thinking on it but my impression was younger, maybe late 小 of early 中.

I got the same impression, late 小 of early 中. He’s interested in the girl because she’s more or less his age, and she’s from Tokyo(?) and has seen famous people. (By the way, that’s the second book in a row where I come across a casual mention of Amuro Namie. I didn’t know her at all before that, but that’s no surprise, I’m horribly ignorant about pop culture, and Asian pop culture even more so.)

@pocketcat

That was the bit. I was like, “…is this kid a ghost?”

Oh come on, I’ll be bummed if this turns out to be the plot twist. At that point he was thinking about a schoolmate of his who was interested in ghosts but had recently moved away, and then he was caught up in a fantasy where everyone left and he was left alone on the island. At least that’s what I figured at the time. There’s definitely people on the island, but we don’t know how many kids there are, so maybe one friend leaving is enough to make him worry about being the only one remaining soon.

[omk3]

I finished the first chapter last night, but was too sleepy to post.

Thoughts on 第一章, part 一

I had such trouble understanding whose point of view we were following The author seems to like these movie-like scenes where we just jump into a scene and have to figure what’s been going on on the spot. At first I thought the story was from Sousaku’s point of view (should I include a content warning about his failed attempt, by the way? Not sure), then from his father’s point of view (don’t ask me why), then I thought it was Jun and Sousaku talking, then finally after having finished reading it and reread some parts it dawned on me that it was Jun and his mother talking. Which would mean the 死んだ嫁はん is probably the father’s late wife (and Sousaku’s mother) rather than Sousaku’s late wife like I first thought?

Thoughts on the whole 第一章

So we have three childhood friends: Sousaku, who is suffering from depression, suicidal tendencies and severe lack of self-confidence because of his horrible ex-boss, Jun, the indirect narrator, an introspective guy who treasures the few friends he has, and Haruo, the one who loves travelling and suggested the trip in the first place. They are all in their late 30s, but it looks like only Jun has a steady job, and none of them is married, with only Haruo having been mentioned to have a girlfriend. Jun lives with his mother and Sousaku with his father after he got rescued. The trip to the island is an attempt to revisit the fun times of their childhood so as to shake Sousaku out of his misery - they were all into occult stuff and that medium, Utsugi Yuuko, when they were younger. So despite all signs showing it’s a bad idea, they head to Mukui island on the specific dates of the prophecy. A classic beginning to any horror movie.

I found it surprising how many real places and events were mentioned. TIL that 3.11 is used to refer to the earthquake of that date that caused the tsunami and the Fukushima disaster. I also learned about the train derailing between Tsukaguchi and Amagasaki, killing 107 passengers in 2005. And of course the Tokyo sarin attack also got a mention.

Places mentioned, mainly part 三

Our characters live in Itami, a town near Osaka.

Several Osaka destinations are mentioned, like Amemura (American Village?), Daimaru (large department store), Grand Front Osaka (a large commercial complex) and Abeno Harukas (a skyscraper that contains a department store, offices, restaurants and a hotel among other things.)

More interesting are the Seto Inland Sea islands. Naoshima especially is known as a hub for art and architecture appreciation. Here’s the iconic pumpkin sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, mentioned in the book:

Incidentally, the pumpkin has suffered its own little adventure when in it was washed into the sea in a storm in 2021. In 2022 it returned to its rightful place.
Nearby islands Teshima and Inujima are also art centers, with museums, galleries, outdoor exhibitions and art festivals.

Mukui island is not on the map of course, but it’s supposed to be south of the Ieshima Archipelago:

.
The boat doesn’t go straight to Mukui (as no one ever visits), but first stops at Ieshima and Bozeshima. There are several small, uninhabited islands south of Boze that might be the inspiration for our Mukui, which of course must be fictional.

By the way, the city they took the boat from may possibly be Himeji, which I enjoyed reading about in a totally different book. Himeji Castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture and comes of course with its own rich lore and legends.

Speculation based on not much at all

I have this nagging suspicion that maybe Sousaku wasn’t in fact saved on time, and has been a ghost all along. He seems corporeal enough (he even had a fistfight with his dad, didn’t he?) and I’d hate to be so miserable even as a ghost, but it’s not completely out of the question.

And then there’s this lady that ran to catch the boat at the last minute. The boat crew didn’t seem to notice her, and if I understand correctly, no one actually saw her apart from Jun. Jun who, the strange ominous lady said, had a powerful protection against supernatural curses.

Phew, that was quite a lot of writing for a first chapter!

[pocketcat]

@omk3

And then there’s this lady that ran to catch the boat at the last minute. The boat crew didn’t seem to notice her, and if I understand correctly, no one actually saw her apart from Jun.

I clocked her as being the tediously necessary for some reason love interest. The guady lady with her cryptic warnings I suspect is already dead and or possessed, though.

Re: content warnings - I’m not sure how it works in book clubs. I also am not sure if that is something that would bother a lot of people interested in reading horror. That said, it is something I’d put in a final book review as a caution.

[NicoleIsEnough]

Re: Thoughts on prologue

@omk3

What I settled on is this: There’s this ryokan on an island, and they’re currently filming one of those ghost-hunting shows.

That was my first impression as well. But I thought that the reactions of the locals did not fit well to this, and also the ghost hunter‘s response to the protag. So on second thought I figured that it’s a live documentary on a real ghost hunter on the island.

@omk3

Oh come on, I’ll be bummed if this turns out to be the plot twist.

Guaranteed, I was thinking about that as well Especially since somebody mentioned Sixth Sense
So far it sounds possible that this is the plot twist, but on the other hand he seems to have a real interaction with this girl, so maybe not?

@omk3

then he was caught up in a fantasy where everyone left and he was left alone on the island

I was confused about this as well, especially since he is not the only inhabitant at that time. But it did not feel like a fantasy to me either… So maybe he is the only young person?

Re: Thoughts on 1.1

@omk3

I had such trouble understanding whose point of view we were following

I was a bit confused about this as well. I got rather quickly that it was from Jun‘s pov, but I didn’t get that he talks to his mother until the very end.

@omk3

Which would mean the 死んだ嫁はん is probably the father’s late wife (and Sousaku’s mother)

I also wondered whether it’s Sousaku‘s wife, but that wouldn’t make so much sense in context, and I also decided it must be Sousaku‘s mother.

I will comment on your other points later as I haven‘t finished the chapter yet.