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    Suicide Forest
    Suicide Forest
    Suicide Forest
    Audiobook10 hours

    Suicide Forest

    Written by Jeremy Bates

    Narrated by Joe Hempel

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author Jeremy Bates comes a tale of mystery and horror set in Japan's ancient Suicide Forest, a place that is easy to enter but, for some, impossible to leave.

    Just outside of Tokyo lies Aokigahara, a vast forest and one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in Japan . . . and also the most infamous spot to commit suicide in the world. Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming, haunting deep in the ancient woods.

    When bad weather prevents a group of friends from climbing neighboring Mt. Fuji, they decide to spend the night camping in Aokigahara. But they get more than they bargained for when one of them is found hanged in the morning-and they realize there might be some truth to the legends after all.

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJan 29, 2019
    ISBN9781977334350
    Suicide Forest

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    Reviews for Suicide Forest

    3.5/5

    81 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Jeremy Bates is my favorite author and this series never disappoints!!
    • 5/5
      A great book and well narrated. Looking forward to his second one
    • 4/5
      The story starts off super slow and does not pick up until about half way through. The ending is what takes it from a 3 start to a 4 star.
    • 4/5
      Aokigahara -4.5 stars...

      I absolutely love books with unique settings so when I came across this series I was completely psyched! This first book is set in Aokigahara and it's about a group of ESL teachers living in Japan that want to climb Mt. Fugi before they leave. On the day of their trip though, the weather takes a turn for the worse and their climb gets delayed. So in order to kill time, they decide it would be fun to camp for a night in Aokigahara, then hopefully climb Mt. Fugi the next day. Once they get in the forest though, a number of things start happening and their "fun" camping trip turns into their worst nightmare.

      I can honestly say that I never want to visit Aokigahara after reading this book but I had tons of fun reading about their trip! LoL It was creepy and intense and Bates kept me in suspense the whole time. I thought the horror element was nicely done too. It wasn't too over-the-top which I really liked and thought lent the story some added realism.

      The only reason I didn't give it a full 5 stars was because there were a few minor plot holes here and there that probably could have better fleshed out. For example: The group's ready acceptance of two strangers, Nina & Ben, into their camping trip?; Ethan agreeing to climb the same, exact tree with rotting branches that John Scott just fell off of?; John Scott- a hard core military guy with bags of shrooms?; The group's ability it seemed to not eat or drink hardly anything but still function normally?; Neil acquiring food poison from what food?; John Scott's ability to up and walk & run with a crutch right after a compound fracture?...

      None of those things distracted from my enjoyment of the story though. It was tremendously good and I highly recommend to anyone looking for a thrill! As soon as I finished reading it, I vowed to read every other book in the series and I immediately bought the second book Catacombs online. I can't wait to start reading it and see what awaits me in Paris. : )

      *I read this book for my 2016 Halloween Book Bingo: ~Grave or Graveyard~ square
    • 4/5
      I love the concept that Jeremy Bates has taken up for this series--placing novels in the world's scariest places, but not as further evidence that they're scary (at least not in this case). These characters know what they're walking into, and they go partly because of the area's reputation... and yet, they don't find at all what they might have expected.I wasn't sure that this would be surprising, or have the capacity for twists and surprises to keep it interesting, given the concept, but this was a consistently surprising read (in a good way), and had a great balance of character, atmosphere, and plot. Each time I picked up the book, I didn't want to put it down, and it gave me everything I want in a good horror novel.I will admit that, especially in the first portion of the book, there were moments when I wished there'd been a better copy-editor to catch little mistakes, but either those mistakes were less present as the book went on, or I was too wrapped up to notice (which is rare, but could have been the case here). Either way, there weren't enough little editing issues to make me regret picking the book up (which, yes, has happened) or put me off from reading more of Bates' work.All told, I'd recommend this to any horror readers (and not to anyone else...).
    • 4/5
      A group of friends are planning to hike Mt. Fuji but their plans are cancelled due to impending rain. They then meet an Israeli couple who were also planning to hike Mt. Fuji but are now going to go camp in Aokigahara Jukai (also known as The Suicide Forest) instead. The group of friends tag along with the Israeli couple to see if the place is really haunted. They move past the signs urging people to think of their loved ones and not to continue into the forest but their curiosity is piqued. The forest is so dense it's easy to become lost. And by morning one of them will go missing.

      This was well-written. It had the right amount of spookiness. The characters were three-dimensional. I enjoyed the snippets about their lives before they got caught up in the horrors of The Suicide Forest. It was easy to feel like you were there in the forest with them. I'm looking forward to book number two in World's Scariest Places!
    • 5/5
      Heart pounding suspense!
      Revealed through the eyes and voice of Ethan, who deals with the strange and gruesome occurrences that he, and six other companions, experience in Aokigahara Jukai - the Sea of Trees, or better known in Japan as the place to go, to commit suicide.

      Suicide Forest –It’s an intriguing title and it only gets better–Jeremy Bates wrote a vivid novel, and pulls the reader into the world under the trees, a woven canopy of twisted boughs and an imaginative macabre forest.

      The protagonist's back story unfolds nicely with bits and pieces of his experiences as an English teacher in Japan. The tension picks up quick, and the companions roll from one ordeal to another, in a well-paced sequence of events, responding to each tribulation in creative ways. They all react with their own voice and tone, bringing an added dimension to the storyline.

      Throughout the book there is a true sense of place, and of cultural backgrounds with the descriptions of the music, food and drinking customs, and boundaries in relationships–all defining our humanity. The differences between the characters, as well as their common threads, are exposed.

      The cast of characters begins with Ethan and his girlfriend Melinda, both English teachers in a foreign country. Her friend John Scott, an American soldier, tags along. Also another teacher and Ethan’s co-worker Neil, and Tomo a young Psychology major–they then meet up with two new acquaintances, Ben and Nina, who are Israeli. All of them are from different backgrounds and cultures, and they each have their own personal struggles. A common theme they do share–thoughts about suicide, or at least about death, for various individual reasons. The seven companions hike into the woods following lifelines of ribbons, and set out to camp for a night. Not everyone comes out.

      They deal with the situations that arise, until you are led to think there is no place to turn–or hope left. But Ethan finds a way. I don’t want to give anything away but an unexpected turn leads the reader into a shocking end...

      I never saw it coming. I believe, humans are the worst monsters. You have to read the book to understand...

      As a reader, I finished the story satisfied, with lingering thoughts about the situation the book presented. I am always happy read a story that makes me think and learn new things, and Jeremy Bates did an excellent job of sharing his added flavor to the story, with his own experiences in travel, and obvious research.

      I strongly recommend this book for suspense seekers, you will definitely be entertained.

      A lucky fan, I received an early copy, I also preordered as well, because I plan on reading it again and sharing with others. Release date Dec 14 - available for order now.
    • 3/5
      Spoiler at end.A group of gaijin decide to camp in Japan's infamous Aokigahara, a forest infamous as a place to abandon children and to commit suicide. A few of them are determined not to leave until they see a corpse. Some of them get their wish in a manner they didn't want or expect and the survivors realize that someone or something doesn't want them to leave. Mr. Bates writes as if he has visited the place and/or done much research on it. He describes this haunted place well enough for me to see it but not to feel it. He is better at his action story which is tense and interesting enough to finish. He ends bravely, showing his hero and heroine still fighting despair and the cruel unfairness of life even in the US.
    • 5/5
      It’s hard to explain the human mind. Why are we drawn to places that have a history of death and that people say is cursed. Why would anyone want to go camping in a place called Suicide Forest? Perhaps it’s for a thrill or just to see a place that most people are terrified to go to. Suicide Forest by Jeremy Bates is a psychological horror story that looks at people’s fascination with death, why people commit suicide, the hardships of life, friendship and love.The story is fairly simple, it follows a group of five people on their way to climb Mount Fuji in Japan. Their trip gets rained out, they meet two other hikers and decide to camp in Suicide Forest instead. Suicide Forest is a real place where hundreds of Japanese citizens go each year to commit suicide. The forest has a dark history, the area is considered cursed and is associated with demons in Japanese mythology. The place contains rocky caverns, trees twisted into strange formations and is absent of wildlife. The seven campers are hoping to see a ghost or perhaps a body but they get far more than they bargained for.The thing I admired about Suicide Forest was that this is a book that didn’t have a lot of action until the end but still managed to keep me interested. I found the characters so intriguing that I couldn’t put it down. Even the characters that aren’t in the book long have fascinating back stories. This is a psychological horror story which explores some deep subjects in a horrific setting. As dark as it is it actually has some funny moments as well, such as when the campers talk about the quickest ways to die. It’s a heavy topic but even in a hard situation I felt this scene added realism because even in a life threatening situation you would make light of it to deal with the horror all around you.This book is light on action but big on suspense. The reader is constantly left with a feeling of unease because you’re not quite sure what’s happening until the end. The only thing you know for sure is that entering the forest was a bad idea and all the characters seem to turn on each other at one point. This book made me think of The Blair Witch Project with the exception being that this takes place in what is believed to be a real haunted setting.There were several things I loved about this book. I liked how it looks at Japanese culture and how the setting is described. From reading this book I felt like I had visited the Suicide Forest myself. I also liked the discussions in this book on why people commit suicide, with some saying they understand it and others saying they don’t. I also loved when one of the minor characters makes a revelation about death that’s hard to disagree with. This is also reflected well in the end of the book when you see that two of the main characters are forever changed by the experience they had with one feeling one way and the other being at the opposite end of the spectrum. If you want to know what I mean read the book and find out, you won’t be disappointed.
    • 5/5
      This was an awesomely scary story. It took an already historical area known for suicides, add in some adventurous hikers, and a murderer. It makes for a horrendous couple of days.