This was definitely a very different read. I was very impressed with the way the author made these stories so subtle, yet so ominous at the same time. I think that this was a great read for people that really enjoy nuance and are drawn to the details. There was a novella and two short stories in this book and I was impressed. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley,

I devoured this book. A quick and very disturbing read, also superbly clever, it had me questioning characters in the book when I'd finished. And also going back and rereading bits to confirm that my suspicions were correct.

I loved the way it was written, and how the short stories left you guessing and theorizing what was the reason or meaning behind them. I particularly liked the last short story which played on the 'monster is in the house's trope.

Highly recommend picking up for an October Halloween read!

This was a collection of short but eery and disturbing stories that I couldn't put down. Nothing else to say other than read it you won't be disappointed if you are a fan of creepy insidious horror that you think about long after you've finished the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The central story of Nails and Eyes follows a young girl’s perspective as her new stepmother moves in, shortly after the sudden and unexplained death of her mother. The girl seems to know everything about her stepmother, and her observations become sharper as time goes on. Nails and Eyes is accompanied by two other shorter stories, What Shoko Forgets and Minute Fears.

I did enjoy Nails and Eyes, however, I was expecting it to be somewhat more unsettling. It felt a bit subdued and I would have preferred a deeper dive into the girl’s feelings or the situations as they occurred.
I didn’t really understand the purpose of the second story, it felt slightly confused and unclear. I enjoyed the final story but it didn’t blow me away hugely.
Not my thing unfortunately, I had higher expectations for this one…

Intensi, inquietanti, disturbanti, questi racconti si aggiungono a letture che dipingono un Giappone ben lontano dall'incantevole, equilibrato, raffinato Paese che ci immaginiamo in Occidente. Tutte le distorsioni della società, incarnate nei singoli individui, nutrono una narrativa che difficilmente arriva in Italia, impegnata a importare romanzi ben più leggeri e incoraggianti, lontani dall'inquietante profondità di questa raccolta.

A mini-collection of Japanese shorter fiction. We start with a promising novella, a very eerie, atmospheric study in female-centered horror. The narrator is a girl-child, one recalling with eerie clarity things that happened when she was three years old. A woman now lives in her mother's place, after mother dies in peculiar and suspicious circumstances. The story's narrated in the ever-chest-pokey second person to "you," who is the replacement her father brings into their lives for dead, blogger-mom mother. The problem is that "you" has terrible vision, is a terrible judge of character in trusting the father and the daughter, and never quite coheres as more than a collection of those kinds of heavy-handed symbolic traits. What really threw me out of the narrative flow was the fact that I'm somehow supposed to believe this is a child's memories. I'm just too literal-minded for that to work. Three-year-olds are still pretty iffy with object permanence and a robust theory of mind hasn't had a chance to develop. Therefore, this is not realistic. I know it's not supposed to be. But I need its hows and whys not to be unexplained if it's going to require me to suspend my disbelief from a noose twelve feet up.

<U>What Shoko Forgets</u> isn't very interesting as horror, being a ghastly case of elder abuse and failing memory covering up the perpetrator; far too close to my own life's circumstances for me to think anything except "WHERE IS THE CASE MANAGER?!"

Lastly there was <U>Minute Fears</u> which, sad to say, was an unmemorable story of a little boy's deeply off-kilter perception of and obsession with the kami-spirit of a park, told by his bemused mother; the abrupt, somewhat silly ending just reinforced how underdeveloped the whole felt to me, as well as so short I got very little impression of its players.

I liked the unsettling mismatch of the tone to the subjects. I strongly suspect, and even hope, that others with less onerously literal minds will try this very, very short (took me two hours from start to finish) Spooky-Season selection for their Oktoberreads.

A novella + two short stories, all enjoyably disconcerting and quietly creepy.

The titular novella was particularly well-developed. A young woman who has been coasting through her life with poor vision but good luck has been having an affair with a married man; when his wife dies in a shocking accident, they move in together with his three-year-old daughter, the only witness to the original wife's death. The narration style here is the real winner: it's narrated by the daughter, in first-person direct address POV (not second-person!), and the style snowballs into something legitimately terrifying.

This collection has three stories, novella "Nails and Eyes", "What Shoko Forgets" and "Minute Fears".

In "Nails and Eyes", a young girl tracks the progress of her mostly absent father's relationship with her new stepmum. The young girl is constantly on edge, biting her nails and not really engaging with others, while her stepmum attempts to bribe the girl with junk food. The conclusion seemingly comes out of nowhere, but not really. Every step in the relationship, and the shocking act that culminates it, is carefully shown. It's masterful.

In "What Shoko Forgets", a grandmother suffering from a stroke is in a rehabilitation facility. She watches the other patients, feels frustrated with everyone around her, including her daughter and what she perceives as her insufficiently dutiful granddaughter. I will admit to wondering exactly what happened at the end.

In "Minute Fears", a young mother looks forward to getting together with her school friends after years, but her young son is having a meltdown about something that happened earlier in the afternoon at the playground. It all feels like a totally normal thing that could happen, and then the ending is shocking and eerie.

Each story beautifully creates the lives of the families it portrays, while also handily building dread and suspense with its tightly written prose. There is also a pervasive, claustrophobic atmosphere in each tale, which leaves one constantly wondering both what will happen next and, what the heck happened? This was a creepy collection of stories, particularly the novella for which the collection was named. It's dark, disturbing stuff, and it's great.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Pushkin Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino is a collection of short horror stories and I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars

The storytelling was well written and the imagery used was indeed chilling and creepy with just the right amount of scare. The stories are creative with unique ideas that kept me wondering what will happen next. The length of each story was just right with cliffhangers placed in the right spots. The editing of this book was flawless and I see no grammatical error or typing errors throughout the book.

Fujino's Nails and Eyes is a good read and the right amount of horror with so much less the morbity. I will definitely read more of Kaori Fujino's books in the future.

A collection of three stories, Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino is a thrilling work. I found the titular story extremely gripping, there's a certain choking feeling I had as I read through it.
The other two stories although were good, didn't compare to the titular story. Overall I'm glad I read it. Some of the great writing that will leave you spooked.
Thank you to the Netgalley and the publishers for the earc.

I wouldn't say these were scary stories, more speculative. But enjoyable overall and always good to read works in translation.

This collection is very mid-tier for me. Out of all three stories, I think the last one was actually the most "spooky". I think I liked the title story the best, but I felt like the ending was lacking something and was too sudden. The second story, about "Shoko", I honestly had no idea what it was about, but I'm not great at reading between the lines.
The writing was pretty good mostly, but I got incredibly bored in the moments where the author describes every single thing a character does, even the seemingly unimportant stuff, like: 'she walks over to the counter, she picks up the knife, then she goes to the fridge and opens it and gets the butter, before closing the fridge again. Then she walks back over to the counter and takes out a slice of bread ...' I'm getting tired just writing this example.

I was bored by this novel. I kept waiting for something to happen that would connect me with the characters but it never came.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

A delightfully creepy little Japanese horror novella (+ two short stories!) that would be a good pick if you’re looking to include some women in translation in your October TBR! 👻
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The titular novella really steals the show here. It’s about a young woman who becomes a stepmother to a little girl who is decidedly unnerving. There was an incident with the girl’s mother which she may or may not, accidentally or intentionally, had a hand in, resulting in her death. I loved how Kaori Fujino explored these timorous dynamics - the woman never knowing how much authority she has, how much she should discipline the child, where the boundaries lie. This becomes all the more complicated when she becomes obsessed with the deceased mother’s interiors blog. There are also themes of infidelity and revenge explored, with some scenes that will definitely make you squirm!
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I did have some questions about the ending though. The child is supposed to be three years old, and based on my own niece when she was three, I’m not sure she’d have had the fine motor skills to pull that off?? 😂 But either way it was creepy and made me cringe in a good psychological-horror-y way!
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The two short stories were also pretty good. One features an old woman in physical therapy who’s convinced she’s being harassed by a malevolent spirit, and the other has more of an urban legend vibe, where a young boy is traumatised by the ‘curse’ supposedly placed on him by the ghost of a playground he visits 👻
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Quick read, good thrills, interesting themes, would recommend!
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Translated by Kendall Heitzman

This is a collection of three short stories but it has been marketed so wrong. It is described as a “tense, subtly disturbing literary horror” for fans of Samantha Schweblin but there is nothing horror about these stories at all, not even horror adjacent, aside from the mention of a ghost in the last story but that’s about it. The stories seemed underdeveloped and like there was no clear point they were trying to make. A lot of people have said they enjoyed the title story but it just didn’t do it for me and seemed a bit all over the place. There were some interesting concepts in here but it really wasn’t for me.

Unsettling, disturbing & beautifully written and translated, Nails and Eyes is a small collection of Japanese literary horror short stories. Kaori Fujino's ability to paint the story all around the reader, and envelope us in such a chilling and unnerving way - was truly mind-blowing. From the turn of the first page, I was instantly hooked and only put the book down to take a break between stories, because I was so jarred. In Nails and Eyes, the young girl addresses the stepmother directly, with an eerie amount of obsession, observation, and knowledge. The perspective was unique and highly intriguing, and incredibly well done. From a book called Nails and Eyes, it was everything I could have wanted and so much more. The imagery and symbolism was intense and impactful. I found myself hanging on every word and highlighting nearly every page. Each story led me on their journey and successfully thrilled and creeped the absolute heck out of me.

A collection of three excellent short stories. All are tense and hard to look away from as they build to their conclusions.

A muddled and disturbing short read about girlhood that falls into the horror genre. Translated from Japanese, Kaori Fujino tells the story from a young girl's perspective. As the teen's stepmother infultrates her home and her life, the narrator starts to become obsessed with the stepmother, knowing details nobody should have access too. While her obsession is growing, so is her need for details.

This is a short yet engaging read about obsession mutating itself and not being able to be held at bay.

Disturbing, weird and difficult at times. Horror fans should be happy with this one too, but it will definitely appeal the most to those who look for creepy literary fiction. Recommended.

It would be naive to think that the titular novella, Nails and Eyes, would end without succumbing to violence. When clear as day, it would be nothing close to the words gentle and tender. Through the eyes of a little girl, one would expect an innocent narrative, but we're surprised by the depth of what she knows. Truly a nail-biting and eye-bulging read.
 
Two other short stories accompanied the unsettling atmosphere set by the first one. What Shoko Forgets brushes over topics such as sexual abuse and trauma. But I wish it were broadened and not just hinted at. Nevertheless, I think it really was intended for readers to never feel the closure they're seeking.
 
The last one, Minute Fears, reminded me of a silly ghost story the adults around me would tell just so I would be scared and go to bed early when I was young. "A monster is inside the cabinet; it will get you if you're still awake by..." But their good intentions, instead of being beneficial, actually do more harm to children. It's distressing.

ARC was provided by Pushkin Press under NetGalley! Many thanks!