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A review by bookishvice
Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin
4.0
Rebel Skies is an exciting read, perfect for Studio Ghibli fans looking for that type of awe-inspiring magic and world-building in the pages of a book.
The start of Kurara's adventure was like visualizing scenes from Spirited Away, which was wonderful and yet it made me nervous about how many similarities there would be. But the story quickly turns into it's own thing as we learn about shikigami (paper beasts), class divisions in society, and a surprising discovery by Kurara herself. We then set on a journey for Kurara to develop her Crafter skills -- people who can manipulate paper -- to impress the princess of their kingdom, who (according to her mentor) is the only person able to help Kurara with her discovery.
The story slows its pace towards the middle as we get the usual scenes of an MC meeting their crew, then short training montages, learning advanced techniques, and so on. I was never bored, but I also didn't have any urgency in returning to reading the next chapter like I have with unputdownable books. The ending picks back up the pacing and we're left with a non-resolution that I'm guessing will continue in book 2.
There were two things that didn't exactly work for me:
1) The character development remained surface level. We get their personalities front and center, and I could guess at each character's background and motives, but very little is revealed and confirmed to the reader, so I just stopped wondering at some point.
2) This one is a huge pet peeve of mine, but a villain POV is included. These often take out the mystery or the shocking surprises in the story because we literally know what's coming from the villains own POV. I always prefer an MC who works to uncover the villain, than the villain being shown to us by the author.
Overall, I quite enjoyed Rebel Skies and I'll be looking forward to the next book. This reads like a younger YA title, so I'll be interested to see how it grows along.
The start of Kurara's adventure was like visualizing scenes from Spirited Away, which was wonderful and yet it made me nervous about how many similarities there would be. But the story quickly turns into it's own thing as we learn about shikigami (paper beasts), class divisions in society, and a surprising discovery by Kurara herself. We then set on a journey for Kurara to develop her Crafter skills -- people who can manipulate paper -- to impress the princess of their kingdom, who (according to her mentor) is the only person able to help Kurara with her discovery.
The story slows its pace towards the middle as we get the usual scenes of an MC meeting their crew, then short training montages, learning advanced techniques, and so on. I was never bored, but I also didn't have any urgency in returning to reading the next chapter like I have with unputdownable books. The ending picks back up the pacing and we're left with a non-resolution that I'm guessing will continue in book 2.
There were two things that didn't exactly work for me:
1) The character development remained surface level. We get their personalities front and center, and I could guess at each character's background and motives, but very little is revealed and confirmed to the reader, so I just stopped wondering at some point.
2) This one is a huge pet peeve of mine, but a villain POV is included. These often take out the mystery or the shocking surprises in the story because we literally know what's coming from the villains own POV. I always prefer an MC who works to uncover the villain, than the villain being shown to us by the author.
Overall, I quite enjoyed Rebel Skies and I'll be looking forward to the next book. This reads like a younger YA title, so I'll be interested to see how it grows along.