I mean honestly your thesis is as good as any other at this point but I hope the answer to the riddle is not some paranormal phenomenon because I feel like it would be a bit cheap. I know that the narrator introduced themselves as an occult investigator but I feel like having unspecified supernatural elements in a crime mystery is really cheap.
As this thread clearly demonstrates, this book turns everyone into 栗原さん.
Occultism
Idk, since the narrator writes for an occultism magazine, I was kind of expecting something like this from the start. My first guess (back in Week 2) was demonic possession, but vampire works, too. As far as explanations go, something supernatural would actually be less flimsy then any other theory that’s been mentioned so far, imo. Better than Kurihara’s theory about a bunch of internet nutjobs getting a married couple to raise a kid they trained to commit murders and build one murder house after the other, in any case.
as for the missing left hands, perhaps the family eat them because they have an unhealthy obsession with satay (sa-te, さて… get it…) [dodges thrown tomatoes] [PS yes, I know that is not the correct reading of 左手] [unnecessary blur of theory too preposterous even for 栗原さん]
I flew to the end of this chapter in just a little over a day’s worth of reading lol It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten so into into a book!
Also now that I’m caught up with the book club I can say my thoughts without fear of accidentally saying something from a future reading.
Thoughts on Floor Plans
I agree that there is some wild jumping to conclusions, but I’m having fun following along the process of where the reasoning goes to. I’m assuming quite a bit will turn out to be false.
I found the weird stuff about the Tokyo house’s child’s room on my own, but the stuff about the parents’ room I didn’t. Also when I tried to line up the open space on the 1st floor with the 2nd I didn’t think anything about where it was placed.
I agree with other comments here, I was assuming the triangle room was added because they realized they needed to block the direct line of sight into whatever they’re doing in the living room.
I don’t think that’s a good place for a baby though? Having a tiny room off of the 1st floor living room while the parents sleep upstairs… I don’t buy it. Also with infants I thought Japanese parents typically have the baby sleep in their bed with them?
Catching up now during the equinox readathon and I agree that Kurihara is sus, but I feel like he’s intended to be right? It’d be weirder to introduce his off the wall theories and then have them be completely wrong.
Only 4 more weeks to catch up to current.
murder stuff
I had completely missed the bit about the left hands being removed. I read the stuff about the family and the added room and I think I got it pretty well, but the hands is a detail I missed. I think someone in the family had a craving that only hands could satisfy.