If you’ve noticed by the date of the last review, it’s been about a month since. I predicted that this would happen ever since I’ve made the site and the About page. So I think it’s about time…
I will be going on a hiatus for an indefinite amount of time.
Forewarning: This volume contains spoilers for all the previous installments of the Book Girl series and this review will assume that the reader has read all of the volumes up to this point.
Kotobuki has provided an option to Konoha. “You don’t have to write. I’ll stay with you.” But Ryuto isn’t backing down, threatening to harm Kotobuki. As the situation escalates, it appears the only way to resolve it all is to find the answer to the truth: behind Tohko’s rumored disappearance, Ryuto’s severe grief, and Kanako’s unknown hatred.
It’s been two years since Konoha first met Tohko, the president of the Book Club and self-proclaimed book girl. As the day of Tohko’s graduation slowly approaches, Tohko confesses a secret to Konoha, leaving him absolutely stunned. As if that wasn’t enough to shake him, Ryuto approaches Konoha, warning him that if he doesn’t become Tohko’s author, Tohko Amano will disappear.
Forewarning: In the Book Girl series timeline, this volume takes place after the events of Volume 2, Book Girl and the Famished Spirit, and so I will be acting under the presumption that the reader has already read up to Volume 2.
One summer day, Tohko sends Konoha a message saying that she’s been kidnapped. Konoha is forced to come get her, but he ends up spending his summer at the Himekura villa. But on a trip to the local village, he overhears rumors of the mansion being haunted by a ghoul who murdered the servants there eighty years ago, dyeing the villa’s lake blood red.
It’s the beginning of a new year, and while the day that Tohko will leave to go to college is approaching soon, Konoha’s relationship with Kotobuki is developing with their New Year’s date. But when Kotobuki suddenly gets hospitalized, Konoha reunites with the girl he fell in love with long ago, the same girl that gave him a warm smile as she threw herself off the roof.
When Tohko suddenly suspends club activities in favor of studying for her college exam, Konoha finds himself helping his classmate, Nanase Kotobuki. One day, Kotobuki shows up in school crying and sobbing. She says that her closest friend, Yuka, has gone missing. The last known appearance of her was at music practice at her school, when all of a sudden she had changed, obsessively proclaiming that her teacher is an “angel of music”
When Tohko, resident literature-eating goblin, discovers that someone has been slicing the pages out of the library, she and Konoha launch an investigation. The culprit turns out to be Kazushi Akutagawa, fellow classmate of Konoha’s. As punishment, Tohko decides to have Akutagawa participate in the book club’s play for the school’s cultural festival.
While practice for the play is running smoothly, Konoha can’t help but notice the strange resemblance of book club’s play to the circumstances of the vandalism. And with Akutagawa acting unusual from his normal behavior, the situation becomes increasingly dangerous. Will Konoha step in to intervene, opening up to his classmate, or will he reject it, in fear of being hurt again?
The August Hail 