The Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao

"The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot
Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. However, through an unexpected incident, she is labelled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot. 

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and stop more girls from being sacrificed."

I knew I would enjoy this book but I absolutely loved it. 

For a debut novel, it is absolutely knockout. The plot is snappy, fast - paced and fluid while still giving the world time to be fleshed out and moments of quiet. Jay Zhao beautifully interweaves the recognizable elements of popular YA, with Chinese mythology and history all while using these elements to explore the modern dilemmas of sexism, societally condoned abuse, shame tactics, body politics, Chinese tribal politics and jingoism. However, it never becomes didactic, nor do these themes feel forced into the narrative. They flow naturally within the story structure. Clearly an incredibly well read/informed author.  

The writing is stellar. There were heart-breaking moments and moments that made me feel like I should go scream victoriously on a roof top somewhere. The descriptions were beautiful, and created a vivid and unique world for me. The Chrysalises sounded so damn cool. The dialogue is so good, it never felt clunky and each person had a very unique voice. 

The characters where all so lovable to me. Very few novels out there allow their female protagonist to gain full ownership not only of her body, but of her destiny; to be merciless and vengeful, and cold-blooded; to kill people in order to achieve her goals. Zetian is brutal and fabulous. She is allowed to be as cold and calculating as her male peers, arguably more so, while never becoming unrelatable. She loves and feels so deeply, which is why she fights so hard. She is probably the first "empowering" character that I have read that I actually felt was relatable and genuinely had me coming away feeling pumped. 

Li Shimin was adorable, this huge, terrifying, hulking solider is actually a big softie. This contrasted by Gao YiZhi, who is the most traditionally feminine of them all, is the cool and calculating strategist. I adored the dynamics between the three of them. I wasn't aware that it was going to be a polyamorous relationship so I was so thrilled when I started to see the way that the book was headed. I also just really appreciated seeing a relationship between a more aggressive women and and more feminine guy, where she didn't look down on him, nor did he feel emasculated by her in anyway. It was beautiful and refreshing. 

While there where some elements that where clearly recognizable from other places such as the obvious nod to Pacific Rim or Ender's Game, I never felt that this book was derivative. It felt unique, original, scintillating and surprisingly gritty in places. I would 100% recommend and I am looking forward to the next instalment after that plot twist! 

Age Rating 17+. Mentions of domestic violence, rape, abuse, physically mutilation, torture.

The Goddess Chronicles - Natsuo Kirino

"In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear
drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow. On her sixth birthday, Kamikuu is chosen to become the next Oracle, serving the realm of light, while Namima is forced to serve the realm of darkness—destined to spend eternity guiding the spirits of the deceased to the underworld.

As the sisters serve opposite fates, Namima embarks on a journey that takes her from the experience of first love to the aftermath of scalding betrayal. Caught in an elaborate web of treachery, she travels between the land of the living and the Realm of the Dead, seeking vengeance and closure.

At the heart of this exquisitely dark tale, Kirino masterfully reimagines the ancient Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanaki. A provocative, fantastical saga, The Goddess Chronicle tells a sumptuous story of sex, murder, gods and goddesses, and bittersweet revenge."

It's always difficult to review a translated work, because when you come across either brilliance or lack of lustre, it's difficult to assess whether that boon or bane is attributable to the author or the translator.

Such is the case with The Goddess Chronicle, by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland.

The story is a retelling of the original Japanese creation story. I suspect the original work by Kirino is a charged, tight story. Copeland's translation, however, lacks passion, and certainly this is a story about passion, in fact eons of passion as we trace the history of the Yin/Yang gods of Izanami and Izanaki reflected through the mortal lives of Namima and her unscrupulous lover.

There is much here to be said of sibling rivalry and betrayal of sacred trusts, of epic journeys both temporal and spiritual. There is a genesis story, a parallel to the Greek Eurydice and Orpheus myth. There is the struggle of the desperately poor serving religious tenets that serve only to embed their poverty and keep certain people in there place. Of female suffering and betrayal. 

It's all there. Yet not a single phrase of elegance or startling insight to lift the reader from a grey narrative to the chiaroscuro the story demands. Lack lustre characterisation leaves me emotionally detached from the story. There is no final message, no meaning to the story, no insight into the collective female experience. While all these themes are set up, not one comes to any meaningful fruition. This causes the book to feel hollow and deeply, ironically, unemotional. A real disappointment that I am not sure who to attribute blame to. 

Age Rating 15+. Sexual detail, death and certain cultural abuses. 

The Frolic of the Beasts - Mishima Yukio

"Set in rural Japan shortly after World War II, The Frolic of the
Beasts tells the story of a strange and utterly absorbing love triangle between a former university student, Kōji; his would-be mentor, the eminent literary critic Ippei Kusakudo; and Ippei’s beautiful, enigmatic wife, Yūko. When brought face-to-face with one of Ippei’s many marital indiscretions, Kōji finds his growing desire for Yūko compels him to action in a way that changes all three of their lives profoundly. Originally published in 1961,  The Frolic of the Beasts is a haunting examination of the various guises we assume throughout our lives, and a tale of psychological self-entrapment, seduction, and crime."

Sorry for the break guys, just moved house and couldn't access my laptop. 

This was my first Mishima and I was thoroughly intrigued as to what kind of book a man with such a strange and interesting life story would write. He committed Seppuku in 1970 after failing to start a Nationalistic semi-military coup. Please do me a favour and just google this man, his life was certainly unique and he must have been quite a character. 

As I said, this is my first Mishima and I am walking away not really knowing what to think or how much I really liked this book. As with most theme-heavy, rhetorical works of fiction, the characters in The Frolic of the Beasts read more like archetypal placeholders in an allegory than they do representations of persons but that serves well one of the novel's principal themes: Fate's destruction of agency. With exaggerated characters and recurring poetry that echoes like a refrain, The Frolic of Beasts reads like an tragicomic opera, and who will emerge as hero or villain will be determined by whose story you find most sympathetic.

The prose is romantic with pleasingly rambling meditations on imagery even when describing the acts and aftermath of violence. Atmospheric descriptions of a hot Japanese summer leave the reader feeling even more claustrophobic and here is sense of unrealism to the prose, a rambling disjointed simplicity that recalls the sense of a fable. 

I found the premise of the novel deeply interesting and there where moments of real brilliance. However the character where just too one dimensional for me to fully undertand their motivation or their emotional state. This, unfortunately, undercut the impact of the novel for me. There are many moment where more exploration of the character's inner thoughts would have served to heighten an already interesting plot point. For example (SPOILERS) why does Yuko decide to invite Koji to work for her, what emotion drives that decision? Then when he is there, why does she not initiate the physical relationship that she obviously desires? A sense of guilt, the enjoyment of punishing Koji, the tantalising joy of a pleasure not partaken in? 

Because of this lack of emotional fleshing out I found the side characters and stories increasingly interesting. Kimi, for example, and her personal tragedy and story was impactful and almost fairy-tale like. 

Overall an interesting but not brilliant read. However I would like to trey a few more of Mishima's works to get a better understanding of his writing and thematic style. 

Age Rating 16+. Mature content. Rape, sex, violence. 

The Sound of the Mountains - Kawabata Yasunari

"Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night
he hears only the sound of death in the distant rumble from the mountain. The relationships which have previously defined his life - with his son, his wife, and his attractive daughter-in-law - are dissolving, and Shingo is caught between love and destruction. Lyrical and precise, The Sound of the Mountain explores in immaculately crafted prose the changing roles of love and the truth we face in ageing."

A deeply meaningful book that I didn't understand at all. It is a book that I don't think can be read casually, as I did. It would better suited in a book club or high school literature lesson. It must be dissected. The motifs. The meaning of the Noh masks, the different flowers, the stray dog giving birth under the porch. The themes, of aging, love, family, loyalty, trauma and modernity. The subtle word choices and rhythms that Kawabata chooses to employ. If not then you loose much of the authors intent. 

As a metaphor for aging and the difficulty of family relations, it works well. As an actual story... there is barely any plot with nothing coming to any resolution. It was a slice of life book, a slice of the main character's life and existential ponderings used to illuminate certain human foibles to the reader but not to engage us. Not for us to have any conventional feeling of pacing, plot or character development. 

Kawabata crafts the relationship between Shingo and Kikuko beautifully on the cutting edge of sensuality and sympathy. Both the characters thrive separately in their miseries and still somehow in a bizarre way find a spiritual connection with each other, making the reader curious for the unheard. The tension of the unsaid and nervously wanted was certainly the highlight of the book for me. 

A beautiful and unique bit of writing that deserves study but certainly not a story. 

Age Rating 15+. Abortions, affairs and a creeping sensuality. 

Killing Commendatore - Murakami Haruki

"In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in
Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art."

This is my second Murakami and I think I prefer this book to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. While still infused with Murakami's trademark surrealism and many similar metaphors and motifs, Killing Commendatore seemed more coherent. The plot was simpler and the message that Murakami was trying to convey was elegant and present. 

The painting elements were compelling and beautifully written. There's also a deep point about the life of ideas and how they travel to people and places, moving outside of time and how ideas have a life of their own outside their original thinker. 

However, I feel pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it until the final 100 pages or so turned into a slog. I genuinely love Murakami's focus on the mundane and the sense of ennui that it encourages in the reader. On the other, it's repetitive and minimalistic in a way that felt generationally out of touch.

The unnamed main character is in one of these classic Murakami in-between periods in his life, where everything has fallen apart but he's somehow fairly financially comfortable and has time to re-evaluate things. He gets involved with a questionably shady guy, and they start investigating some slowly unfolding mysteries.

That should be great, but the edge parts simply don't work. In particular, the main character has a lot of deeply uncomfortable conversations with a teenage girl about her breasts, conversations which continue on and off for about 400 pages. She's such a poorly imagined character that it seems like it's all she thinks about. Also pretty much every women we meet has their breasts sized up to the point where it is the first thing that we know about them. That's never been ok in these books and it's not ok now.

Murakami novels rely on the uncanny, on coincidence and strange encounters that seem normal but have an undercurrent of anxiety and oddness. The main reason I love them. Some of that was here in a watered down form. The problem is the novel is simply too big for the small amount of story it contained. It has the essence of his tropes but the prose is too weak and stretched to utilise them fully.

Age Rating 16+. Some weird sexual elements with the main character having many affairs and being mildly obsessed on his dead 10 year old sisters breasts. 

A Quiet Place - Seicho Matsumoto

"While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that
his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wife—who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings—ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?

When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife’s death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life..."

At first I blamed the English translation for the unremarkable prose and plodding pace of the story. It couldn't be the author (who is praised for his psychological thrillers) could it? But the more I read, the more I understood that the dull writing was a deliberate device. The main character, Tsuneo Asai, is a middle-aged bureaucrat who has made it up the ladder in the ministry through circumspect behaviour and persistent hard work. He thinks almost exclusively about his job and, as a result, his life is as unexciting as the prose Matsumoto uses to describe it. Only through subtle clues do we eventually realise this fixation on work actually hides a deeper lack of emotional attachment. Asai’s wife is younger than he is; described as plain, quiet and unassuming. She copes well with her husband’s travel and work schedule, spending time with her sister and attending haiku meetings. When informed of her death, Asai is understandably curious and begins an investigation that quickly turns into an obsessive need to learn exactly what kind of life his wife had been leading. At this point, the tone of the story changes and accelerates to keep pace with Asai’s increasing loss of self-control and descent into obsessive neurosis. 

I really enjoyed that Matsumoto flipped the traditional crime structure, instead of the murder happening at the beginning  and the plot revolving around it being uncovered. Matsumoto actually has the murder happen in the middle of the book. I don't want to say to much as I think it will spoil the book. 

Overall, definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea. If you are looking for a rollicking thriller this is not it. It is tense, claustrophobic and has incredibly sparse bordering of out-right boring prose. It is definitely a book that requires the reader to be actively involved and engage in the subtle clues the prose gives you. 

Age Rating 14+ Murder, semi-sexual, injury detail. 

The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo

"One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride..."

Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever."One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride..."

Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever."One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride..."

Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever."One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride..."

Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever."One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride..."

Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever."

Despite some beautiful imagery and scene settings, “The Ghost Bride” is painfully slow. Even though it has the calming zen-like presence common to most Asian historical fiction novels; the plot is halted, as well. Choo has the habit of telling Li Lan’s story versus allowing the reader to ‘live’ it which is unusual as the story is told in 1st-person narrative. Li Lan never comes alive and is one-dimensional, boring, and not available for attachment. This weakens the pace of the story and filters the characters.

“The Ghost Bride” flows too much like a young adult fictional novel as Choo simplifies and overly romanticizes the plot (in a teen lust of way) while also constantly explaining things. Meaning, Choo interrupts dialogue to explain a Chinese term or tradition or even has the characters explain these to each other in a “As you know, Bob…” style common to annoying HF novels. This is not how people think or speak to each in ‘real life’ taking away from the reality of the story. Also annoying is Choo’s overuse of foreshadowing which isn’t subtle, to say the least.

Although “The Ghost Bride” is rich in historical context in terms of the story settings; the characters act, think, and respond in a much too modern way in comparison to other Asian historical fiction novels. “The Ghost Bride” is noticeably modernized, reducing the possibility of memorable and moving characters and/or plots. The novel simply lacks that special “oomph”. 

I had to eventually put it down and didn't want to carry on so I can't comment on

how the book ends. 

Age rating 13+. Creepy ghosts. 

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

"Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether."

Sometimes you are lucky enough to read a book that you know will stay with you. This is one of them. I can never properly identify what makes some books like this. What makes them stick in the back of your mind. I have read many excellent books that do not effect me. I have read many 'ordinary' books that have stuck with me.

This book isn't super long. In fact, it reads like a novella, so it's easy to consume and fast paced enough that about the time you feel really into it, it's over. It's not a bad thing though because there is a LOT packed into this little story. Despite being a story that is explicitly about Yeong-hye, it is actually never told directly from her perspective. Instead, we are give about 60 pages a piece from her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. The oddest part about this formatting is, unlike many book of this type, the perspectives do not overlap. Some take place at the time of Yeong-hye's decision to become a vegetarian, and others take place years after the fact.

To be totally honest, this book is weird. It might actually be the weirdest book I've ever read. But there's still something beautiful about it. It's an honest while surrealist look at mental illness and how it affects not only that individual, but also everyone that cares about them. 

We see how her vegetarianism, which later leads into a kind of manic catatonia, affects first her callous and at times sexually abusive husband, then her brother-in-law who becomes completely enthralled with her sexually because of her Mongolian mark, and her sister who is the last one standing when Yeong-hye’s psyche begins to peel away. Each persons POV bring a unique insight and atmosphere to the writing. The first being deeply hate and disgust filled, the second saturated in sexual obsession and shame and lastly, the final part is so deeply and quietly desolate that it is almost painful to rea. 

In addition to the serious topics that The Vegetarian brushed up against: the effect of cultural mores on women, body image, conformism, familial ties and abuse, and, of course, mental illness - this was also a tale of family dysfunction. It was a tale of familial ties that were severed painfully, of violent confrontations and realizations, of physical and emotional starvation, and a parable about the woman, the vegetarian, at the centre of it all.

The Vegetarian was sensual, and it meandered toward its climax in a way that was both unsettling and prophetic. Honestly, this may or may not work for everyone. It was deeply unsettling and uncomfortable to read, not for the faint of heart or people unable to suspend disbelief. 

Age rating 17+. Incredibly adult material that isn't shied away from. 
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

Shadow of the Fox #1 - Julie Kagawa

One thousand years ago, the great Kami Dragon was summoned to grant a single terrible wish—and the land of Iwagoto was plunged into an age of darkness and chaos.

Now, for whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers, a new wish will be granted. A new age is about to dawn.

Raised by monks in the isolated Silent Winds temple, Yumeko has trained all her life to hide her yokai nature. Half kitsune, half human, her skill with illusion is matched only by her penchant for mischief. Until the day her home is burned to the ground, her adoptive family is brutally slain and she is forced to flee for her life with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll.There are many who would claim the dragon’s wish for their own. Kage Tatsumi, a mysterious samurai of the Shadow Clan, is one such hunter, under orders to retrieve the scroll…at any cost. Fate brings Kage and Yumeko together. With a promise to lead him to the scroll, an uneasy alliance is formed, offering Yumeko her best hope for survival. But he seeks what she has hidden away, and her deception could ultimately tear them both apart.

The main events happen  in the first few chapters and it is almost 300 pages before the book gets back to the main plot of finding the scroll. In between, the two characters travel to the temple, having what feel like various mini adventures along the way. It feels episodic, like anime episodes. The characters from Japanese mythology are  fascinating and my main reason for reading, but the story meanders, name-dropping creature after creature - such as oni or gaki - in order to prolong the weak plot.

Though the romance is pretty tame in this book, it was cliché. I feel like I've read versions of the two of them hundreds of times: aloof warrior dude and a beautiful naïve girl who requires protecting-- what could possibly happen? But to be honest I am not to mad, it was sweet and a fun trope.  

The ending does pick up and an explosion of action awaits (with some surprises added too), but I still felt like I read maybe 100 pages of plot progression and 300 pages of filler. 
 
The characters were what truly sold me though. I loved each of them. Tatsumi was my least favourite but I loved Yumeko and Okame. He is a brilliant comic relief character that had me snorting suddenly. 

Okay real talk, there are quite a few problems with this book. The characters are walking tropes, the ending is obviously there for a sequel, the plot is episodic, anime style glowing possessed swords and white hair, the romance is nothing new and the world building is a lot of telling rather than showing. The inclusion of Japanese words could also slip up people who are less familiar with the language. However, despite all that though I must admit I enjoyed it. It was a guilty pleasure that I will definitely read the sequel of. 

Age Rating 14+. Nothing untoward. 

Gone to the Forest - Katie Kitamura

"Set on a struggling farm in a fiercely beautiful colonial country teetering on the brink of civil war, this second novel by one of literature’s rising young stars weaves a brilliant tale of family drama and political turmoil. Since his mother’s death ten years earlier, Tom and his father have fashioned a strained peace on their family farm. Everything is frozen under the old man’s vicious, relentless control—even, Tom soon discovers, his own future. When a young woman named Carine enters their lives, the complex triangle of intrigue and affections escalates the tension between the two men to the breaking point. After a catastrophic volcanic eruption ignites the nation’s smouldering discontent into open revolution, Tom, his father, and Carine find themselves questioning their loyalties to one another and their determination to salvage their way of life."


Kitamura's deceptively simple prose draws the reader into her tale of colossal colonial and personal collapse and keeps one spellbound to the end. The cast of characters runs from an infuriatingly cold and hostile land owner, to his ignorant and naïve son, to a victimized and victimizing young woman -- each of them unlikable, each at times sympathetic. Each unwitting participants in the undoing of the world as they know it. The land buckles, social order is breached, and the main characters march (or stumble)on at a time when just doing what one always did is no longer sufficient. Of course there is a price to be paid for such stubbornness, and Kitamura describes it with affecting, stark language that had me alternately holding my breath and rushing forward in the text unable to read quickly enough.

This is not a gentle book. There's no nostalgia here for the colonial era or its discontents. Interestingly, the story focuses not on the country's "natives" but on the colonizers who are in the process of being ousted. It's an uncomfortable focus--not a bad one, but a challenging one, since inevitably the readers' sympathies end up painfully divided.

I thought Kitamura's decision to use an anonymous, generic country was a good idea as it allows everyone with a country with a colonial past to draw from their own experiences. The only things we know about the country in question is that it has a mild, probably equatorial, climate; plenty of rich agricultural land; volcanoes; and that dorado (mahi-mahi) live in its rivers. The term "dorado" is Spanish, which suggests that there's some Spanish influence--but that leaves plenty of territory wide open.
I personally enjoyed the brutal and very open ended ending. It leaves Tom and a heavily pregnant Carine cowering behind a tree as a large group of rebels approach. It is implied that they will be killed within moments. While I understand that this type of ending will not appeal to everyone as it has no real resolution or character growth I thought it fit the tone of the story very well. In real life, the world doesn't swerve just because you are experiencing you own story and sometimes people don't change. 

Overall a really stellar book. Some of the most exquisitely haunting language I have read in a long time. Short read that really packs a punch. I would highly recommend it with the proviso that it is an acquired taste. 

Age Rating 16+. A brutal rape scene of Carine by a large group of land owners. The descriptions of the massacres committed by the rebels are also vividly depicted.