Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: ★ ★ ★
This book was chosen for one of our book club reads this past summer, but I knew nothing about it at all except the authors are/were local. When I got it my hands I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was set in Japan and based on Japanese folklore. Cool!
And it was cool, mostly. But sometimes a bit hard to follow. I felt like the authors assumed that readers would have a base in Japanese culture to help them understand things, but if you are coming into it totally cold, you are going to be lost for sure.
It's about a girl whose family runs a shrine in Kyoto. A lot of the creatures that help them are mythological people, some good, some not so good. And most people can't see them, but of course, our girl can.
So one day, some of the bad creatures attack the shrine and are after a relic that they need to take over the world. And Kira (our girl) needs to figure out how to stop this from happening. She, together with her friend (who is... a nine-tailed fox in the making! Ah, do you see a theme in the stuff I keep consuming here!) have to find seven death gods to help them.
It gets pretty detailed and complicated, all the magic and craziness that happens. It's beautifully written and very lush and poetic and awesome. Just... as I said.. sometimes hard to follow and understand everything. But despite all that, I enjoyed it. It was quite the ride!
