Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Sword of Kaigen

An amazing book full of heartbreak, tragedy, spirit, magic, and hope... I could not recommend this book enough. The characters are well-developed, allowing the reader to understand the motives and flaws of each of them, and while 95% of the action takes place on a single peninsula in a single village, the wider world feels fully realized. Many fantasy tropes are inverted on their head through and I can't wait to read more from Wang!

Content Warnings

redroobs's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

beautiful, engaging, heart wrenching, deeply moving, sad, lovely, hopeful, inspiring, epic, incredibly written. brb never…sobbing.

Content Warnings

takarakei's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

3.25

I had been looking forward to reading this book for so long because everyone raved about it... As I do with most books I read, I went in knowing very little: basically that it was loosely based on Japanese history/culture (apparently feudal Japan specifically). In my opinion, even if I had read the blurb for this book prior to reading I think I still would have had incorrect expectations going in.

Unfortunately I felt like I read 3 different books that felt a bit disjointed.

The first ~1/3 of this book is fantastic - good world building and character introductions, multiple povs to round out the perspective, very cool magic and I thought we were being set up for such a cool adventure.
The second ~1/3 was one long battle/war scene. This is maybe a "me" thing because typically battle scenes are really not my favorite thing to read, but this went on FOREVER. Even with the magic being super cool to read, at some point I was just really over reading about it and it felt rather repetitive.
The deaths in this section also felt mostly like for shock value to me
The last ~1/3 after this battle the book took a sudden turn into a super character driven not-plot where we just follow the aftermath of the battle where they are rebuilding this town and it was honestly boring. As my friend said "the culmination of this epic fantasy is….logging and building a school….."
ALSO I HATED the Takeru redemption "arc" cause it's not an arc, it was a complete 180 out of nowhere with no build up and sorry I do not sympathize with him! His character development was not nuanced enough for me to care, and in the end he was still doing dumb things. IMO if Takeru had been explained to be mainly just distant/cold but not outright abusive to Misaki/the children this change would have made more sense.

I guess I just didn't expect to literally not leave this one small town the entire book (Misaki's flashbacks do not count imo). The men in this book were all incredibly insufferable and useless. Misaki was also a bit frustrating to read at times because while I can understand why she entered into this marriage based on societal expectations, I cannot understand how she became a completely different person for 15 years.

After finishing I did some research and realized this book was written as a prequel to a YA series this author wrote that I guess holds the more conclusive ending to the empire etc??? But that made this read not like a completed standalone because at the end I still had a lot of questions about how things in this world would get resolved.

The audiobook narrator mispronounces words which was very irksome as someone who speaks some Japanese. These are not words that were made up by the author, but real Japanese words that were being used in their original context. I found actually the narration was inconsistent with some pronunciation.

Content Warnings

kylek's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-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

4.75

Her body was angled slightly to hide the sword at her hip, giving the appearance of a diminutive housewife. In it's own way, that was better cover than any shadow.

I had been expecting the first half of this to be very boring and just not good because of how people talk about it, but I did not find it boring at all, nor was it bad. Was it slow? I guess. It's the type of slow that you'll find in any epic fantasy/sci-fi. It took like 35% to set up the world and characters, which to me was pretty standard for epics.

With that said this is a very tough one to read in one go because it's so heavy. It was just a lot and for a long time. I think I continuously cried for a solid 30-35% of this book. It just broke my heart over and over again. This book deals with very heavy themes, like TRIGGER WARNINGS

marital rape, rape, suicide, PPD, miscarriage, death, multiple types of abuse. I'm probably missing more. Some of these were on page and graphic, like the deaths

and in my opinion, I thought they were handled well.

I don't want to say much more than this, just that after this and Blood Over Bright Haven, ML Wang is now an autobuy author.

Content Warnings

ichinoot's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

Beautifully written story about the tragedies and reality of war, in a world so different from our own, but still so grounded and human. An incredibly emotional story mixed with an amazing power system and very well written action, you will most definitely not want to put this book down.

Content Warnings