Emma Goto
An east asian-inspired fantasy book, where each race has the ability to control an element - in the case of the Kaigenese (based off of the Japanese), it's the ability to wield water/ice.
The technology in the world is on par with ours (satellites, mobile phones) but for some reason the Kaigenese are very traditional and don't use any technology at all, so the book is essentially transporting you back in time a couple of hundred years.
One of the main characters, Misaki, is a housewife, with no real say in how things are run, even in her own home. Initially this sexism kind of sucks but through the course of the book you learn that Misaki is actually a badass so it's not too bad.
Overall it was a great book with a lot of character development.
My one nitpick would be I'm not a big fan of foreign words inserted into the text e.g random words like “mother” or “damnit” are translated into Japanese. Right at the end, there's a serious conversation in a formal setting, and there are full sentences written in Japanese where they're talking with slang/very casually which felt very very out of place. Just stick to English!
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
An east asian-inspired fantasy book, where each race has the ability to control an element - in the case of the Kaigenese (based off of the Japanese), it's the ability to wield water/ice.
The technology in the world is on par with ours (satellites, mobile phones) but for some reason the Kaigenese are very traditional and don't use any technology at all, so the book is essentially transporting you back in time a couple of hundred years.
One of the main characters, Misaki, is a housewife, with no real say in how things are run, even in her own home. Initially this sexism kind of sucks but through the course of the book you learn that Misaki is actually a badass so it's not too bad.
Overall it was a great book with a lot of character development.
My one nitpick would be I'm not a big fan of foreign words inserted into the text e.g random words like “mother” or “damnit” are translated into Japanese. Right at the end, there's a serious conversation in a formal setting, and there are full sentences written in Japanese where they're talking with slang/very casually which felt very very out of place. Just stick to English!
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.