Empress of all Seasons: Review

     In some ways, I feel as if I read two different books. The first one being an intriguing story where characters navigate a world where human and yōkai most definitely do not live in harmony. The other being a short action/adventure that skims over to many details. 

     The characters are enjoyable, but certain point of views felt unnecessary, but not at the beginning. The beginning felt like more time was put into it. It seems to me, my reaction towards Empress of all Seasons is the opposite of my reaction towards The Kiss of Deception. I found the latter to be a painfully slow written book with unnecessary point of views. I found the former to be a well-paced read with each point of view adding more depth to the plot and the world it occurs in only to be flung into river-rapids two-thirds of the way through. 

     The book has three narrators and each one adds a unique perspective to the story with Mari being a yōkai, Taro a human, and Akira something in between. I enjoyed seeing Taro navigating the palace, Akira’s adventures with the Yōkai revolution, and Mari’s journey in the seasonal rooms. Goodness, the seasonal challenges were my favorite part of Empress of all Seasons. However, it didn’t take up as much of the story as it could’ve.

      I am now entering into spoilers so if you want to read the book, I recommend skipping the last paragraph. 

*Spoilers*Mari wins the Winter Room, which is the last seasonal room, when the book isn’t even two-thirds through. The last third of the book involves a twist villain who was barely in the plot at all. (Honestly, I forgot he was a character) This twist villain then assassinates the emperor and blames it one Mari. The plot drops off from there. This newly revealed villain then persuades Taro to turn on Mari and Akira.  It continues to sprint downhill until the last page which reads more like Cliff notes than the final page of a novel. It is a shame because I loved the first half of this book. *End of Spoilers* If the story interests me, I probably will read more books written by Emiko Jean because I know she can write well. I saw it at the beginning of Empress of all Seasons. 

Top 5 Books that Turned out Better than Expected

Note: Tope 5 Wednesday is a group on Goodreads. If you are interested in joining you can check it out here. 

    I know the topic is technically about books I loved even though I went into them thinking I was going to hate every single page, but that is not applicable to me. Why? Because I don’t read books thinking I’m not going to like them. I read for fun, and I don’t see anything fun about forcing myself to turn every last page of a book even though the words burn my eyes and cause my brain to scream for mercy. That’s just silly. Instead the books I have listed that I ended up enjoying more than I initially thought I was going to. 

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

     The other Legend of Zelda Manga are cute. But, they aren’t that great. I was expecting the usual fair of the others when I sat down with my brother’s copies of the manga one snow day. The writers had much more time to improve on their…comic making abilities for this one, and it shows. 

The Hunger Games

    It was popular so it had to be bad. I only read it out of curiosity. I wasn’t expecting too much and I was surprised. I think my favorite part of the book is during the time spent in the arena. The action flows well and carries the plot forward almost perfectly. 

My Unfair Godmother

    Another case of me reading a sequel to an okay predecessor and not expecting it to be any better.  This is one of the few cases of a sequel that is better than the one that came before it. Everything is just better. The author took what was good with the first book, the humor, the depth of the main character, and the cast of supporting characters, and made it all better.  

Cinder

    Back in early high school, I saw this book floating around in my library and I assumed it was a sci-fi retelling, but I wasn’t very sure about the quality of it. However, I picked the book up after making my sister read it first. She told me it was okay so I read it - in one day. This is my favorite book, but I went in only thinking it was going to be just “meh”. 

Cells at Work

    My sister excitedly tells me about this new anime she had been watching where it was about the human body and each character was based on a cell and his/her career was based on the cells function. To which I responded, “Sounds dumb.” I watched an episode anyway. And another, and another, until I finished the series. Then I went out and bought the manga.