Risuko (Seasons of the Sword, #1)

by David Kudler

[Chelsea]

What I Loved

Firstly, can we all just take a moment to appreciate that cover? That's an A+ cover. It fits with the mood of the story perfectly.

Normally I would hesitate at a historical fiction book. It's not usually my genre of choice but I've been obsessed with Japan ever since finishing Ink by Amanda Sun and I thought this was an excellent choice to learn more about it! I don't know how historically accurate these events are (since I know next to nothing about Japan) but they felt like they were at least based on fact. I ended up loving this book for the history it told us! I was actually interested in the war that was happening and what our characters were doing in relation to it. This war was a lot different than others I've read about so it was actually really fun for me.

The story started off innocent enough. In the beginning I was worried it was going to be more of a middle grade book. It still could be considered middle grade but after getting through more of the story I was confident in classifying this as a young adult book just I felt some younger kids wouldn't be able to understand what was happening. Either way, as an adult even I still enjoyed reading this book.

This is one of those stories where it's hard to talk about the plot or the characters because I found that everything flowed really nicely. It's a story where we got to watch a young girl being taken from her home and then trying to figure out a way to survive. Our main character was a really clever young girl though still young. It was cute sometimes seeing her take a second to clue into something you figured out a page before. I loved that we got to learn things as our character did and I loved seeing her stick to her morals. It was just a really cute story that was fun to read.

What I Didn't Like

There wasn't much I didn't love. I found the story to be a little slow at the start but as I kept reading it I got used to the flow of the story and it made much more sense. This is not a face paced book by any means so keep that in mind when reading!

Who I'd Recommend To

I'd recommend this to any one looking for a slower paced book with lots of rich detail and history. It's an adventure story not action so don't expect lots of sword fights. It's quite the opposite actually, our character is still growing into herself and most of our story revolves on her growth. It's a cute story though and I highly recommend it.