Review by ricarmoo - The Night of Baba Yaga

ricarmoo 's review for:

The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani

4.0

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I’ve never read anything quite like Night of Baba Yaga before. First of all, it’s the first time I’ve read a book translated from its original language. Whether because of that or not, it was written in a very different style to a lot of books I’ve read. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect going in and did quite enjoy just going along for the ride.

Even though the book was short, it managed to pack in quite a lot. I was confused at points as the white what was going on, but as the story unfolded it started piecing together satisfyingly. It was an extremely dark book at times, with some very matter of fact descriptions of awful events. It also managed to display a very tender side too, and shared a really interesting depiction of love in a different light to any I’ve read before.

I think the book will stick with me for a while- the ending alone gave me a lot to think on. The only thing really holding me back on loving this book was the fact that I found one of the main characters very difficult to like for a lot of it. That did change by the end, but that - coupled with the overall bleakness of the novel - did put me off the book slightly as I read it. Overall though, I’m very glad to have given the book a go - it was outside of my comfort zone but well worth the read

Content Warnings