Never Die

What have I just read? What was this?? A weird child is going through pseudo-Asia. He has the mission given by a Shinigami of killing an evil Emperor. Now a small child needs to have some relevant skills to make it so, yeah? Ein can take dead people, bring them back to life and make them help him through this. They are all notable, great fighters, special for some reason and if they manage to do this they will be fully alive again. Not much to lose, right? Getting into this short little book took me much longer than I expected, mostly because a huge chunk of the book is basically the characters going around, finding the next member of the group, making them join the mission, then going on. It makes it easier to remember the characters as they are not dumped at your face all at once and I appreciate that, but also it didn't feel all that exciting. In a way I would say it wasn't. It was fine, it was okay, the writing is good, but it did not feel much more like than your average wacky character heist story. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's not particularly exciting either. The buildup was good, though, by the end I was made to care about these assholes. Because yes, they are not really nice people and Ein is creepy as all hell. But still, I started rooting for them because after everything it only felt right for them to get their way, partially because this wasn't a complicated book and that just seems like the just thing for the characters. They weren't bad enough to not deserve it, damn it. The end, though. Without the end this would have been a one book deal, not even a long one at that. Then things got much more complicated than that. Was it too late to make this an amazing book? I don't know. I couldn't give it a full 5 stars and I needed some time to think about what just happened. At this point I don't know where we are going for the sequel either. Part of me feels a bit salty about the fact we are left at this point of the story. It was a setup. We were made to read something that could have justifiably been half a book. This was the exact opposite of what happened with [b:The Ember Blade 34673711 The Ember Blade (The Darkwater Legacy #1) Chris Wooding https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490348335l/34673711.SY75.jpg 55844744] and I am not 100% sold on either being the better way to divide a story into volumes. This was definitely interesting and creative, but also a very frustrating read. Short, though. I would recommend it because even if you are not on board with what is happening and how... it doesn't take too much effort. It's accessible and short and I think worth at least a look.