Quick Thoughts: The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa
Book 8 of Haruhi Suzumiya

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  3.5 Stars

Two stories continue the adventure in Volume 8 of the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

Editor-in-Chief, Straight Ahead!
Since the beginning of the year, the SOS Brigade has been masking as the Literature Club to be recognized as an official high school organization.  But when the new student council president threatens to disband the group, the members must write a collection of literature.  Naturally, Haruhi assume the role of editor-in-chief and leads the team to publication with hilarious results.

Wandering Shadow
From writers to detectives, the SOS Brigade does it all.  When fellow classmate Sanaka comes to the club seeking help, the team (well, Haruhi) is up to the task.  A well-trodden popular park path has suddenly begun to terrify the neighborhood dogs, and Haruhi suspects that its being haunted by animal spirits.  It looks like the SOS Brigade is about to perform its first first canine exorcism!

Normally, I would review each short story on it's own, give it a rating, and then calculate an average when I read anthologies.  But this time I just didn't feel like it.

The Indignation is just a continuation of the Haruhi Suzumiya adventures with her SOS Brigade, told through the snarky tone of our main narrator Kyon.  It's no different than previous books in the series, with both a strangeness to it that really makes you think, and a larger than life feel that makes you shudder a bit.

The first short story had my expectations up, as I looked forward to seeing what kind of stories each member of the SOS Brigade would come up with, but my expectations were a little deflated.  Specifically, I was looking forward to getting to the end of Kyon's "love story" because the characters hinted that there was a bit of mystery embedded... something that I didn't catch while I was reading it.  And unfortunately, I kind of feel like Kyon's story conclusion was a bit disappointing, almost anticlimactic--basically, I didn't quite understand why everyone was so in awe of it.

Nagato's very short stories were all kind of creepy in a Nagato-esque way, and also pretty thought-provoking.  Asahina's short fairy tale was just cute, illustrations and all.  And here's a spoiler:  You don't get to read any of the other stories the brigade puts together, which is a bit disappointing.  I would have at least liked to have read something of the story submitted by Tsuruya which was supposedly so hilarious that it was making everyone laugh like crazy.

So while I DID like the first short, Editor-in-Chief, Straight Ahead!, I was a bit deflated when some of the building up of my expectations wasn't met.  That's probably my fault.

The second short story, Wandering Shadow sounds like it has a very promising premise... but also fell kind of short.  In fact, I found it kind of boring.

Nonetheless, there was a lot of Kyon contemplating certain scenarios in life, which points to a nice improved development of his character from the lazy high school boy he'd been from the first book.  There are bits of continuation of some background, ongoing story with references back to previous books, and the overall mission to study Haruhi Suzumiya by our time traveler, esper, and alien, and the continued need to keep her content.

Overall, a nice book to waste away some time if you're a fan of this series already.


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Booklikes-opoly 2019

Roll #7:
Square: European Vacation 33 | Read a book set i nthe UK, or that was written by an author whose first or last name begins with any letters in the word L-O-N-D-O-N.

How it fits:  Author's name starts with an 'N.'
Page Count:  212
Cash:  $3