Alisha
I love this book so much. My only complaint, and it's a big one - is it's not nearly long enough. I would have loved to see more of their adventure.
I thought the characters were great, for such a short story I really felt like I got to know them. I loved how queer and polyamorous and nerdy and good natured they all were.
what a touching, thoughtful, interesting little story.
This was absolutely beautiful. Cinematic, exciting, interesting and heartbreaking. I felt the format was fairly unique as it is quite a bit slower in the second half of the book compared to the first half. I realize now that this was a wonderful decision because this book isn't about the battle - it's about self discovery, pain, love, growing and rebuilding after war. The magic systems and the heavily Japanese influenced language and culture are interesting.
I absolutely loved seeing the changes in the main characters throughout their journey and this story made me really care what happened to all of them.
I wish I had more!
What a wild ride! I almost dropped this book about 20 pages in because I had no idea what was going on and it felt like a very random mish mash of words and thoughts. I am very happy I kept going as for me it just took a while to get into the writing style. Once I did, it was actually funny, quirky, dark and unique.
It's a small simple story really but the thought process of the main character was so weird I couldn't put it down. Will be looking into other books by this author now!
I wish I could rate this higher than 5. Absolutely gorgeous, wonderfully vivid storytelling.
Was it grim and depressing? Very, but I felt so heavily invested in the family's lives I found myself thinking about them often when I wasn't reading. I laughed out loud a few times and I teared up at others. I am NOT easily moved by dramas or coming of age stories generally, but this is now an absolute favourite.
2.5. I really wanted to like this more, but I just couldn't. The run-on structure of the writing is just not for me. For such a serious topic, and what should have been an intense emotional story, I felt like I couldn't care about the characters or what was happening half the time. I don't know how to describe it other than there is randomly a ton of description and details at times that didn't matter, and never enough when I wanted it. Sometimes there was a run of a few pages where I thought I was starting to get more into the story and then I would drop off again and realize I hadn't been paying attention for several minutes again.