Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist, #1)

by Renée Ahdieh

[sa090]

To be very very honest, the only reason I even put this book in my TBR was because of the cover, man I love stuff like this. As for the experience of reading the book I loved everything in the first 50% of it but the other 50% were a little bit... I'm not going to say difficult to get through because that's not true, the chapters are really easy to get through but more like it went into a direction I didn't enjoy reading much.

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Before I begin getting into all of that I just want to say that I absolutely loved the fact that she wrote the names how they're pronounced in Japan, family name first and then comes the first name. Not just because she's writing for an English speaking audience she's altering the setting's language to suit her readers. It might not be much but that slight faithfulness if you will is something I appreciated. Speaking of which I also enjoyed the Japanese words she put in there, I watch a lot of anime when I'm not reading or working so I understand the language enough to carry on a conversation and seeing all the familiar words for me was very very nice. The only ones that were unfamiliar but I could easily understand what they were from context were the name of the silk if you will and a certain type of sandals but other than that it was a very pleasant experience in that regard.

As mentioned earlier I really really enjoyed the first 50% of the book, the way Renée Ahdieh built up Mariko was a very nice thing to see because of the whole revenge thing involved and I honestly wished that the book would carry on with that starting premise if you will and while it somewhat did beyond the 50% it added more elements that didn't make it as an enjoyable read before other completely new things started happening that sort of ruined it. Now this is not a Mulan retelling like the advertisement or whatever is claiming it to be, it never felt like that but instead with the names being thrown around this just seemed like it's loosely set in feudal Japan and tbh I wished more renowned names would appear one way or another, even if it's just a mention like our Demon King of the Sixth Heaven but since there's a sequel all hope is not lost.

Throughout the book Mariko will keep mentioning how smart she is and all that but the events or rather her actions sometimes speak otherwise, I mean in the beginning it was awesome to see how her mind worked and how she dealt with certain stuff but as we went by in the book it felt like she's more of an all talk kind of person who always always always did the complete opposite of what she' been saying she'll do. That was a bit exhausting to read when I'm sitting here hoping that we'll go back to the revenge angle and I'll see her go all ballistic against everyone but honestly this "everything is not as it seems" angle is a bit too much of a cliche and a letdown for me to easily get over. Something way more cool could've happened instead.

The second issue I had with the book is the romance, I mean yes my least favourite genre ever is romance but usually I don't really have an issue of how person A ends up with B and frankly I don't give a damn about ships to actually rage over them but in this book the main couple don't make a shred of sense. Enemies turned to lovers is the second worst thing to love triangles for me in the genre and the way it was handled here made it feel like it just happened just cause, literally not a single moment passed where I wasn't sitting there thinking "HOW did this even happen?" It didn't make a shred of sense to me, add the fact that the longer they stayed together the worse they got and it's just salt on the wound. This is my first Renée Ahdieh book so I'm not familiar with her writing style but wow. There is a second book so it could easily have been fleshed out here and resolved there to have it make a little more sense but I guess not.

Speaking of fleshed out, I really enjoyed the magic/supernatural elements she added to the story but I honestly wish that she actually took the time to explain some of it instead of just glossing over it. I'm really surprised that no one asked the questions that mattered about that, I'm not sure if aspects like that are normal in their world that they just ignore it or it's because Japan has the Shinto/Onmyouji beliefs and such that just let's them take these things for granted that Renée Ahdieh didn't think it's important to mention them in bigger details... Suffice to say I'm having huge hopes for the second book that it will be explained in bigger details because of what happened at the end of this book, since honestly it's such an interesting subject that's too much of a waste not to talk more about.

Because it's the first time I read a Renée Ahdieh book like I mentioned earlier I'm not really that familiar with her philosophical way of writing (I think I can call it that), it seems that the characters had a lot of different things to say about the same thing that it felt like it's a clash between philosophers with different ideologies. I did enjoy it more often than not since there were some really nice point of views to read but I couldn't help but feel that it had way too much of it if you will. Not bad by any means but just an observation on my end.

So in the end the book had its ups and it had its downs, but either way I'm still going to read the sequel because a duology isnt too much of a hurdle to get through. Ironically I already planned to read Eona after this and the empowerment/self-exploration angle Flame in the Mist had reminded me of Eon so I'm really curious to see how they compare as a whole.

Final rating: 3/5