Honobu Yonezawa (米澤穂信), Yonezawa Honobu, born 1978) loved making up stories even as a child and began writing fiction at the age of 14. By the time he got to university he was posting stories on his own website. After graduation he continued writing while working in a bookstore, and first got into print in 2001 when Hyoka (Ice Cream), a YA mystery novel he submitted for the Kadokawa School Novel Prize competition, earned an honorable mention. Sayonara yosei (Farewell, Sprite), a critically acclaimed story of the relationship between Japanese high-school boys and a girl from war-torn Yugoslavia, helped cement his reputation when it was published in 2004. Since then he has been a regular presence on lists of the year's best mysteries. Oreta ryukotsu (Broken Keel) won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Novels in 2011. Though known especially for his distinctive and fresh blending of the tale of youth with the whodunit, Yonezawa has also made forays into science fiction, as with 2006’s Botorunekku (Bottleneck) and 2007’s Inshitemiru (Try Indulging), a sinister "murder game" story. In 2013 he published the novel Rikashiburu (Recursible). He is a leading figure among Japan's younger generation of mystery writers.
Unlike the third book which made it difficult for me to finish, this fourth book made me excited, especially from the climax to the conclusion. As I always thought, Kobatou will be more lively when he is with Osanai, and vice versa. And I feel like they're starting to realize that, yeay! I hope that from now on this young couple who is determined to become petit bourgeoisie will no longer hide their true identity from each other and focus on enjoying their "limited" time together to fulfill their curiosity (and to eat more sweets).
P.S. I don't want to be mean but I also agree with Osanai about her opinion of Urino-kun.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Yonezawa has again taken this series to places I never expected it to go. Here he takes a HUGE risk by making a brand new character the main narrator and has the rest of the main cast work more in the background and he absolutely sticks the landing. The new character is a really hard character to like, making this an even trickier balancing act, and indeed in the first half I did find myself wondering why the author picked a character with far less interesting inner dialogue than Kobato. But everything comes together so perfectly in the end. The main mystery completely blew me away and the little mysteries mixed in did a really good job to highlight the gap in the way Kobato perceives himself (or wants to) and his actual personality. Yonezawa really drills into Kobato’s personality in this one by having new characters react to him, and it ends up giving new and interesting perspectives into his less flattering attributes.
It’s been a while since I’ve finished a book, and in that time I was thinking about what it means to participate in a youthful setting. Similarly, this series by Honobu Yonezawa excels in exploring two high school characters that I’d summarize as “wise in a hypocritical and isolating fashion”. This volume is a huge payoff from the last one, with a subversive and well-focused method of solving the mystery and wittily leading to an appreciated semi-conclusion for the characters. I also want to make sure to mention how well personalities and developing perspectives are imbued or accounted for in the writing.