Get Trapped in The Graveyard Apartment

The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike centers around a young married couple who move into the news apartment with their small child and pet dog.  The apartment is everything a person could want, close to shopping centers and a school.  Cheap price for such a spacious apartment, but there is one catch; it's built with a graveyard right outside.  Not long after the move in, weird and creepy things begin to happen to the family and the few other residents who live in the apartment.  One by one, the other tenants begin to move out until this family is the only one left with whoever or whatever it is that is haunting the building.

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars.  It was a quick read and held my interested the entire time.  I'm always up for a good horror story and that is what this was, a horror tale.  I kept wanting to find out what exactly it was that was causing the creepiness to the tenants of the building.  One would naturally assume it is the spirits of the dead, considering the apartment is right by a graveyard.  What I didn't like was that the ending was too abrupt.  There was no closure or solution to the problem we saw from the beginning of the novel.  It kept us hanging on with no indication of a sequel happening.  I would love to see Koike write another part to this novel so that us, as the readers, aren't kept hanging on the way we were with this one.

I found it hard to really like any of the characters in this book.  I think the only one I did like was Cookie, the dog because she was the only one who could sense the horror as it was happening.  Always trust an animal's instinct and the family really should've listened to that in the first place.  As much as I loved the book and the story, the characters not so much.  Teppei and Misao were the couple who moved into the apartment.  They were both immoral, as the two had an affair while Teppei was married, causing his first wife to commit suicide.  That right there was a put off for me.  Tamao, their daughter, at times, seemed to be a little too whiny for me.  Yes, she was a little girl, but still, a little too whiny to get through.  The names in the book were too similar to one another (added with some of the minor characters) that I found myself having to go back and figure out who was talking.  Koike should've used a variety of names, those that weren't common with one another and it would've been easier to read.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is a fan of horror.  It was a fast read and it kept you on the edge of your seat.