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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Slow to start but as the story goes on it picks up pace and is so beautifully written that it is worth taking the time to stick with it.
I adore anything involving Japanese mythology so it hit a lot of high notes for me, even though neither protagonist were particularly likeable or engaging. It has really poignant moments and interesting characters along the way.
If you're into alternate dimensions, stories that have a moral to them and Japanese inspired stories - try this out!
I adore anything involving Japanese mythology so it hit a lot of high notes for me, even though neither protagonist were particularly likeable or engaging. It has really poignant moments and interesting characters along the way.
If you're into alternate dimensions, stories that have a moral to them and Japanese inspired stories - try this out!
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Excellent premise and an interesting fantasy world. I just didn’t like the execution - a bit slow and not my style.
I wish I liked this book more than I did. It was both too much and not enough. The characters just kept going place to place to place without really any time to breath. Yet there didn't really feel like any urgency. I think the main problem is that after the first few characters most of the book is from Kei's POV. It's just constantly Hana explaining things about her world as they run place to place while Kei thinks about how much he wants this woman he just met.
On the day Hana is supposed to inherit her father's pawnshop, a magical place where people can trade a choice they made, she wakes to find it ransacked with her father and a choice missing. Hana is given two days to find the choice. In steps Kei. The moment they see each other they fall in love. The book tries to make their love believe able, it even give an explanation for why they are inexplicably drawn to each other, but it feels hollow. Instead of tracking down the choice, Hana goes searching for her father, and Kei follows along. The rest of the book is them traveling around Hana's world but we never stay anywhere for more than a few pages really. And they go so many places. They went from the pawnshop to the temple with candles that repeat the last prayers said to them, the teahouse in a tree in dreamland, a black and white painted world, Tokyo station with moving statues, a sea village with clouds instead of water, traveled by a memory of a song, a museum with paper cranes that tell the time an event changed history, a village that paints hopes on kites to create stars, a lake full of lotus and glowing creatures, a forest with multicolored wind chime leaves, a ghost village, a market in the sky, a library of lost books carved into a mountain, a railway that constantly changes, traveled by rumor spreading, an underground garden for soulless children, and the real world They went to about 20 different places. The book either needed to be longer or multiple books so we could have actually spent time exploring these places or it should have cut out half of them. I've seen people comparing this to Studio Ghibli, it's one of the reasons I even wanted to read this book, and it really isn't. Don't get me wrong, it has the whimsy and magical feel to it that Ghibli does. But, for me, it didn't have the same heart. I feel the closest movie it could be compared to is Spirited Away. Both have someone from our world ending up in another more fantastical world, the Shiikuin could be similar to no face, the folded paper and train station play important parts of the story, but it doesn't have the same feel. In Ghibli movies everything has a reason, it's very synched. The characters may go three or four different places, they may be strange places, but they all have a purpose to the narrative. This book, however, felt like someone was told to write a book in the style of Ghibli and they just tried to fit in as many wondrous whimsical things they could think of into one story. All of the Ghibli movies have a message with characters that feel whole. This book has a message too but it falls flat because the characters are flat. I don't believe the instant love between the two, even if the book tried to give a reason for it at the end of the book, and the love triangle added half way through didn't help.
I also haven't seen anyone else really say this but this book felt a bit anti-abortion. Kei was the choice that Hana's father set free, his mother's choice to have an abortion and work in a flower shop or to go back to have the child and go back to her lover. Hana herself is also another "choice" baby. There's a scene that Kei helps a woman give birth in an elevator and it literally has no purpose to the plot. Then there's the whole thing with the soulless children. This book is all about choice and yet it feels like it's saying that a baby should always been chosen? But maybe I'm just interpreting it wrong.
By the time I was half way through I couldn't believe there was still so much left of the book. Then the ending wrapped up too fast. This book honestly reminds me of Night Circus. Both the books have a lot of magical things happen and yet nothing really happens. In a world in which every little choice matters, maybe I should have chosen to read a different book.
On the day Hana is supposed to inherit her father's pawnshop, a magical place where people can trade a choice they made, she wakes to find it ransacked with her father and a choice missing. Hana is given two days to find the choice. In steps Kei. The moment they see each other they fall in love. The book tries to make their love believe able, it even give an explanation for why they are inexplicably drawn to each other, but it feels hollow. Instead of tracking down the choice, Hana goes searching for her father, and Kei follows along. The rest of the book is them traveling around Hana's world but we never stay anywhere for more than a few pages really. And they go so many places.
By the time I was half way through I couldn't believe there was still so much left of the book. Then the ending wrapped up too fast. This book honestly reminds me of Night Circus. Both the books have a lot of magical things happen and yet nothing really happens. In a world in which every little choice matters, maybe I should have chosen to read a different book.
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
At first I was enjoying the scenery, thinking the story would actually start happening eventually. But as thick as this book is, it feels like it spent way more time describing scenery the characters barely even linger in and much less time actually exploring the thoughts of the characters. We pretty much only get to experience the emotions of the characters via dialogue, usually of them telling another character how they feel, so it's not very convincing. Even the idea of Hana repressing emotions on purpose doesn't come through because we just don't get any emotions at all hardly. It also bothered me that the Shiikuin threatened her about the loss of a choice, gave her a two day time limit to find it, and then we go on this wild goose chase hopping from one place to another with no further acknowledgement of the time limit, even as it passes, no anxiety about betraying the Shiikuin when she continues to just look for her father etc. and it just makes no sense that we are supposed to accept her father's explanation that he expects the Shiikuin not to punish Hana just because it was him who stole the choice. Like there just isn't enough in the text for those two scenes to not contradict each other. by the end of the book I was speed reading through the paragraphs and all the wild time travelling the scenes do (a few days ago this chapter, 21 years ago the next chapter, then 5 years later etc etc) and none of the multiple twists and emotional scenes felt emotional at all and honestly just felt jarring. I feel like perhaps this book was too long. Although the scenery was beautifully described, I feel like I need more in a book, especially one this long, to enjoy it.
Also my edition has some errors in the Japanese sentence on page 291.
Also my edition has some errors in the Japanese sentence on page 291.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Quirky and like a dreamscape- this book bends the rules of literature and fantasy worlds. There is a really juicy twist which I didn't see coming, and the book is tied up nicely at the end.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes