by Emiko Jean
rating: ☆☆
published: 8th November 2018
spoilers? yeah, fairly big
Goodreads
Galley provided by publisher
For the most part, I think this is just one of those "it's not you, it's me" books. There are reasons that I struggled with it that I know are subjective, which others may not find to be as off-putting as I did, but there were also a few points that I would say are less so.
Empress of All Seasons tells the story of Mari, a yōkai, who enters the competition to win the hand in marriage of Taro, the emperor's son. The competition involves overcoming the Season rooms in the palace, each designed by a priest to represent the four seasons. In this world, yōkai are all registered and collared, and treated as slaves, and Mari has been trained since a child to win the competition and steal the Emperor's treasury.
Initially, I liked a lot about this book - the writing was good, the characters seemed great, and I loved the concept, so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, things didn't quite pan out as I expected.
The writing got somewhat tedious after a while. I think it was partly because I took a lot of breaks reading this, and I read some books with really good writing, then coming back to this one made me realise that it wasn't actually all that good. So I got bored of it really quickly. Not to mention some of the scenes were really cringey, like, so cringey I had to skimread. Like the part where Mari confronts another yōkai in the Winter Room. Linked to the writing, I found the pacing a bit strange. Everything happens really quickly (after Mari reaches the palace) and, although it never felt underdeveloped because of that, I did feel like occasionally some scenes, particularly those where the contestants were in the rooms, could have stood some more time dedicated to them. The end was also incredibly rapid. The final battle itself isn't, and is possibly one of the only times I felt like a scene got the time it needed, but the entire bit after that is summed up in an epilogue chapter, when, quite honestly it was enough plot to take an entire other book.
As with the writing, I also started disliking the characters by the end (though never Mari, she was my favourite), particulary Taro and Akira. In fact, I just disliked Akira right from the start. He was in love with Mari, so he spent most of his time obsessing over her, and it was so damn tedious. His only motivation for doing anything was that he loved her. Like, I got it the first time Akira! Also, both he and Taro referred to Mari as "his" multiple times, because yes, of course, you love her, suddenly she belongs to you. I honestly wanted to tell both of them to get over themselves. The love triangle aspect (though was it really a love triangle when Mari didn't really seem to like, let alone love, either of the potential love interests?) just tired me out in the end.
Finally, there was a part I was fairly unimpressed by, which may or may not fall into the bury your gays trope, because it's more of a vague hint than anything and I could be taking things completely wrong. Asami, who joins with Mari in the competition (and don't get me started on how this would have been a much better ship than any of the heterosexual ones), is killed in the Winter Room, leaving Mari to become champion. Now, she's been a spy for the yōkai Resistance, headed by Hanako. On finding out about Mari's death, Hanako is upset, because she loved her. The reason why I'm not sure whether this is actually a case of bury your gays is that, while I took that to mean romantic love, with Asami and Hanako being a couple, that may well have not been what was intended. And it's also not clear whether Asami reciprocated that. But if that hint is right, then it's really disappointing because, in a book saturated with heterosexuality (there are two rōnin at the start who have a "brotherly bond", and I was like, hmmm), there's firstly, only a vaguely hinted gay couple, and secondly, one dies. So, I'd really like to give Emiko Jean the benefit of the doubt, but I've been burned a few too many times for that.
Ultimately, that's why I rated this book down to 2 stars, where I might have given it 3. That and the fact that, although the concept sounded amazing, I didn't really click that well with the execution.
0 comments:
Post a Comment