abirdiebooks 's review for:

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

3.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I feel like I just read 2.5 mostly finished books instead of one cohesive story. This could have benefited from M.L. Wang waiting to get a bit better at building a story and world, a few more rounds of editing and some thrown out plot points. This feels like it should have been somewhere in the middle drafting stages (storywise, mostly not writing wise) and not a finished product. It IS sad that we won't get more though. If this book had been worked on longer and published later and as part of a more cohesive series set up it could have been excellent.

Potential triggers:

The casual moments of domestic abuse, both in thought, conversations, and actions could have absolutely either disappeared or been handled differently. The mention but complete lack of real discussion regarding marital rape was just. No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide, Grief, War

Moderate: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Infertility, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail