Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It’s a great fantasy book that appeals to those who like Chinese and/or Japanese mythology, female lead, some graphic battle scenes (but not overly so), leisurely pace.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Honestly I think the journey Yoko goes on through this book is amazing. It wasn't rushed at all, and it was a pleasure to see the steady growth. At the beginning she kind of frustrated me, and I wasn't sure if this was going to be the type of story I like, but I loved the themes and the tone of it all. It was such a slow build and the drip of information is slow, so it felt truly rewarding to get to each bit of revelation or character growth, and see how things tied together at the end.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with an at least 4-star rating on Goodreads
--------------------
If there's one trope I love even more than a slow-burn romance, it's slow-burn character development. Seeing our protag Yoko grow from wimp to badass in such a realistic, hard-won manner is one of the most deeply satisfying character arcs I've seen in quite a while. I feel like I've read a lot of YA where the hero protag is just awesome and beloved for no real reason, so Yoko as a lead was refreshing.
This was the main selling-point for me with this book, but the world-building is nothing to sneeze at either. If Narnia is a Euro-centric idea of what a fantasy world created by God would look like, then the Twelve Kingdoms are a similar thing, except Asian-centric. It was a little hard at first to wrap my head around a world where all living things come out of magical eggs that grow on trees (that goes for humans too), but it grew on me after a while.
Docked a star for a rather rushed ending and a bit of info-dumping in places, even if the in-story reason for info-dumping was slightly more justified than in most cases.
--------------------
If there's one trope I love even more than a slow-burn romance, it's slow-burn character development. Seeing our protag Yoko grow from wimp to badass in such a realistic, hard-won manner is one of the most deeply satisfying character arcs I've seen in quite a while. I feel like I've read a lot of YA where the hero protag is just awesome and beloved for no real reason, so Yoko as a lead was refreshing.
This was the main selling-point for me with this book, but the world-building is nothing to sneeze at either. If Narnia is a Euro-centric idea of what a fantasy world created by God would look like, then the Twelve Kingdoms are a similar thing, except Asian-centric. It was a little hard at first to wrap my head around a world where all living things come out of magical eggs that grow on trees (that goes for humans too), but it grew on me after a while.
Docked a star for a rather rushed ending and a bit of info-dumping in places, even if the in-story reason for info-dumping was slightly more justified than in most cases.
I read this years ago--I can't believe I never added it here. This is one of the books that makes me wish that more Japanese fantasy was available in English. (I have a major in Japanese now, but it's going to be some time before I can read the rest of this series...)
I've read many stories about characters from our world travelling to mysterious new ones. It's a wonderful trope. It's usually filled with the wonder of exploration. This one is not. Yoko is terrified of her new surroundings, the magic that helps her fight, the differences between this world and the one she was born in that hammer in the sense that she is no longer home. I remember being so viscerally taken in by her journey, the culture shock, as well as just the cool details and the arrangement of the world, its mythology and creatures, and so on. It was her fear and her developed me that really got me, though, and I related to the process of adjusting to a new culture, and I really, deeply loved reading about that experience in a fantasy novel.
I've read the next two books and enjoyed them, but none of them stuck with me the way Yoko's quest did.
I've read many stories about characters from our world travelling to mysterious new ones. It's a wonderful trope. It's usually filled with the wonder of exploration. This one is not. Yoko is terrified of her new surroundings, the magic that helps her fight, the differences between this world and the one she was born in that hammer in the sense that she is no longer home. I remember being so viscerally taken in by her journey, the culture shock, as well as just the cool details and the arrangement of the world, its mythology and creatures, and so on. It was her fear and her developed me that really got me, though, and I related to the process of adjusting to a new culture, and I really, deeply loved reading about that experience in a fantasy novel.
I've read the next two books and enjoyed them, but none of them stuck with me the way Yoko's quest did.
If you're not into blood and gore, pass this book on to someone who is.