Reviewed by sa090 on
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I was wary going into this book because of my previous disappointments, it may not be a fair assessment but most of the time, I really can’t help but do that. Thankfully however, this book was a very pleasant read. If anyone asks me what are my top favourite manga series, the answer is simple: Pandora Hearts, Kokou no Hito and Innocent. With it taking a mountaineering approach, this book reminded me of the beautifully dangerous world I saw in Kokou no Hito which in turn made me very excited to follow where exactly we’re going with Kamzin in this journey. I’m not going to sit here and compare between them though, because this debut novel has more than enough going for it.
The main thing I have to praise in this book is the world building, being based on a Tibetan-esque culture gives it a somewhat unique edge already which kind of made me want to see a little bit more in that regard. That being said, what I got from the slightly short book was enough to carry the narrative without making things confusing to follow. I enjoyed the way she brought in a shamanic twist to the series with the amulets and the carved material they use to do magic, I also really enjoyed learning more about the dark history of their world with the various threats that appear at certain points in the story. The thing I enjoyed the most however, was her take on this journey, the way she describes the scenery, the feelings some of them evoke alongside the weather made this one very entertaining world to build for me. Reminded me of how good Allison Goodman was in building Eon.
The characters aren’t groundbreaking, we easily get the “not like other girls” trope when taking in our main heroine but that’s not where she annoyed me a bit tbh (I usually don’t have much of a problem with that trope btw). She does have her fair share of pretty cool things to do in the series, but the way she deals with certain people can either be a little too childish to see, way too naive or just plain jealousy induced that I can’t continue without rolling my eyes, although the instances were thankfully few in numbers. The others seem to be fitting into molds as well which tbh was a fitting thing to see, there wasn’t that much of a need of anything extremely different, even though I wish we explored a few of them a little bit more than what I got. Lusha for instance is probably the most interesting character in the book for me but her instances were few given the events so her character wasn’t explored enough for me.
The big twist if you will wasn’t as clear cut because of one small spoiler filled reason but there were obvious hints here and there that made it easy to lay the groundwork of said twist while following the journey before it’s revealed. I think I figured out 80% of it before the reveal, my only hindrance was that small reason I mentioned. This question was an interesting one to try to answer for me, I really enjoyed thinking of different ways this could work before it was revealed.
I do appreciate that while the book had romance and instances that worked towards that, the focus we had on the climbing and making our way through the mountains remained the most important aspect of the book. Did the romance work that well? Ahh, honestly it’s difficult to say without spoilers but for now it was an obvious turn of events, kind of meh and had something that annoys me to no end in romance sprinkled on top but not too much. I can only hope that it won’t ruin much in the sequel and conclusion of this story.
Despite my criticism of some aspects in the book it was a very entertaining read for me, my time never worked out to be able to read a lot in a single sitting but now that I finished it, it’s definitely one of the better first books I read this year.
Final rating: 4/5
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 16 November, 2017: Finished reading
- 16 November, 2017: Reviewed