Reviews

Instant favorite! An oasis in a desert.

The words that immediately come to mind when I think of this book are delicious, scrumptious, and absolutely exquisite.

The Sword of Kaigen is an appetizing read and a mouth watering story I had the pleasure of gobbling up after being starved and depraved of good books for far too long.
My god! This was such a refreshing and nourishing read for me. I haven’t felt this way about a book in sooooooo long and M.L. Wang clawed her way out of the barren wasteland that has been my library as of late and sprouted a beautiful tree that gifted the pages I eagerly devoured.
Wang’s skill in writing, pacing, and imagination is truly fun to experience; and her ability to pull emotion out of you effortlessly left tear stains that warped the paper on my copy.

If you love fantasy, epic world building, carefully thought out and descriptive elemental powers and battles akin to Avatar The Last Airbender, please give this book a read. It is a must if you consider yourself a fantasy lover or lover of great stories in general.
I found myself geeking out over the battles and messaging friends like “this is so sick!!” urging them to read it too; based off the epic fighting alone.
The beautiful bond that bloomed between a mother and her son was such a heartwarming and emotional addition to the story. I instantly found myself engaged with the characters and their journey from chapter 1.
I laughed, cheered, cried, and grieved for and alongside these characters.
Misaki is truly an interesting character and it was so fun to be able to explore her and her journey and to be able to experience her bravery, love, hope, intelligence, and woman’s rage and strength ignite and explode within herself.

I can see how maybe others would score this lower than me and I recognize nothing is perfect and people might not like certain aspects of the story like the ending, but personally it hits all the things I love to read about and is a perfect read for me.
This is definitely up my alley and my taste in books and stories in general, but also would still be a great read for anyone as Wang is a great story-teller and technical writer! I would definitely recommend giving it a go, especially impressive since this is a self published book.
I found myself curled up in bed, wayyyyy past my bed time sacrificing my sleep for work, getting lost in this world and having that giddy feeling of wanting to engulf myself with every word on the page.
It really ignited that nostalgic feeling of love for reading again that I haven’t felt in quite awhile and has pushed me to feel motivated and look for more books and be excited about reading again. If you were stuck in a reading rut like me, consider reading this! I feel so inspired, revitalized, and definitely feel like the cobwebs have been dusted off.

babooshka's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

chrissyanity's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

5.0

connorb's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

readwithbeth_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

5.0

stop what you’re doing right now and pick up this book because you will not regret it.

now like everyone I’ve seen this book all over BookTok where everyone is saying this is a 5+ star book so I was intrigued but I wasn’t sure that high dark fantasy was for me.

But after I saw this book on KU and eventually picked it up and began to read, I devoured it! The first 40ish % did take me a little bit to get too, you’re immediately getting this amazing world building between a mother who has a mysterious past she can’t talk about (Misaki Tsusano) and her amazing sword bearer eldest son who is finding out everything the empire has told them about Kaigen’s history isn’t all true (Mamoru Matsuda).

I recommend reading StoryGraph’s description because it perfectly described the Sword of Kaigens synopsis without revealing the spoilers I would accidentally spurt out.

the sword of kaigen has it all, perfectly developed characters, outstanding magical fight scenes, and Wang makes sure you feel ALL the emotions, I mean I was trying reading chapters but just couldn’t put this book down, this book consumes you and I will never stop talking about it.

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