Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Sword of Kaigen

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

16 reviews

opalmars's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Everyone considers this book a masterpiece. I found it profoundly average. 😐

Don’t get me wrong: the world, magic and characters were interesting. And the plot sounds incredible! A boy raised to be a fighter realizing the empire he was ready to die for has been lying to its citizens for decades? The boy’s demure mother secretly being an incredible fighter? A war starting without warning and the mother and son fighting in it? It all sounds amazing on paper!!!

Emphasis on “on paper” , though… Because in reality the pacing of this story truly kills its intrigue. In the first third of the book the only things that happen are: Mamoru realizes the empire lies to its citizens, we learn Misaki was a fighter in her past, and Misaki shows her fighting abilities to her son. Other than this, all we get are some EXTREMELY clunky pieces of world-building (long monologues, a lady telling an old story, and classroom history lessons detailing everything the reader needs to know about the history of this world are not a great way of doing the exposition, btw 😬). Here's the thing: the stuff we got WAS interesting! But I’m sorry: 230+ pages into a book and only 3 “substantial” things happened??? That’s insane.

After those ~230 pages we FINALLY get something! Their village gets attacked by another country and they have to fight. And then the fight goes on for 100+ pages……………… 😐 Listen. I was happy *SOMETHING* was finally happening, but MY GOD………. A 100+ page fight scene was waaaaaayyyy too much! There were definitely interesting things in that chunk of the book (

Spoiler

uncle Takashi dying, Misaki grabbing her hidden sword and killing a bunch of super powerful soldiers, Mamoru mastering the whispering blade and then dying?!?!?!

)!!!!!! But I definitely think that sequence as a whole was way longer than necessary, and a lot of it felt like padding. It was even worse because of the whiplash I got while reading the book: 230 pages of basically nothing happening followed by 100 pages of non-stop fight scene… It just didn’t work for me, unfortunately.

We then get the aftermath of the battle, which I enjoyed: seeing the trauma these people have after losing their loved ones, the village being destroyed, the government clearly not caring about them, people realizing that the government is shady… It was all very interesting. But, once again, it went on for waaaaay too long, with very few “substantial” things actually happening –

Spoiler

Misaki mourns Mamoru, Misaki’s friend Hyori commits suicide after birthing a child who’s father was the soldier who raped her, Misaki fights Takeru as a way to “open his eyes”, Takeru gets a stupid redemption arc (I’ll elaborate on that later because what the fuck?????), Misaki’s brother shows up, people start slowly rebuilding the village…

]. These are all interesting things! But like…….. the fight scene ends at 54%, and the next TRULY INTRIGUING (imo) thing that happens takes place at 81%! It took 170 pages for something that actually captivated me to happen, after that damn fight scene!

Actually, for some reason, most of the interesting things happen at the end of the book (and they’re never really expounded upon…).

Spoiler

A shapeshifting spy/assassin shows up and tries to kill the MCs + a child is kidnapped (and then this spy is only brought up again 60 pages later…… 😑); Robin (Misaki’s boyfriend from school) shows up saying his wife might’ve been killed by a mythical blood puppeteer and asks Misaki to try the technique on him; he reveals the child who was kidnapped is going to be used by some bad guy who is trying to create an army of powerful thonites…

] THAT ALL SOUNDS SO INTERESTING???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! I wanna learn more about that!!!!!!!!!!! Why would you only drop those super cool things at the very end of the book???? And, mind you, none of those plot points are explored in any way! They’re just mentioned and instantly dropped. It felt like the author was setting up for some kind of sequel, but it just didn’t work at all for me, because after reading 500 pages of a very mediocre story, the author decided to tease me with what COULD’VE been an *actually interesting* book! The disrespect!!! 😒😒😒 Also, the fact that we only learn about the war at the 85% mark (only for it to never be explored in any way) is absurd, but I digress… I understand that this is supposed to be *A* war story, so it makes sense the author didn’t show much of… anything else, honestly?? But that doesn’t make this story better, and it didn’t make it any less infuriating when the author kept teasing me with a better story.

So… yeah. The story didn’t work at all for me. 😐 I genuinely don’t understand why people keep praising this author’s writing. It isn’t terrible, sure (I enjoyed the emotional scenes, the world and magic system were cool), but it sure as hell isn’t great 🤨. The pacing was a MESS and the book was full of really long, boring sections; the world-building was ridiculously amateurish (dozens of pages of history class, woman telling an old story, and never-ending monologues, are you kidding me???); there were lots of typos (I’ll forgive it bc this is self-published)… I also found all of these problems in Wang’s newest book “Blood Over Bright Haven” and now I’m wondering if terrible pacing and expository monologues are this author’s signature… Yikes. 😬😬😬 Another thing I didn’t like about the writing: the narrator would randomly “spoil” things??? This only happened a couple of times, but it really took me out of the story. Like, suddenly the narrator would just say something like “What Mamoru didn’t know was that his own mother was hiding a super special sword in their house” (which is something that only comes up in the actual plot several chapters later), or “Hiroshi would master the whispering blade a decade later” (this doesn’t even happen in the book)…. These just always felt really random, idk… 🫤

Now for the characters. I enjoyed Mamoru’s story the most – him slowly realizing the empire was lying to its citizens and having to grapple with what that means was super interesting (it’s a shame we didn’t see more of that story…). Misaki was cool. Knowing she had a badass vigilante past but was forced to hide it after accepting to marry into a family who basically didn’t view women as human beings was interesting, but also very infuriating (I just wanted her to get the fuck out of there lol). It was *extra* infuriating because, once again, the author teases us with what could be an interesting story, but then settles for the boring story. 😐 I 10000% would’ve rather seen Misaki’s past in her fighting school and working as a vigilante with her foreign friends. Also, Robin was sooo much better than Takeru!!! It almost felt insulting to get a glimpse of Robin at the end, only to be forced to accept Takeru as Misaki’s forever partner. 🤢

Speaking of which: I don’t like Takeru. He spent *15 years* mistreating Misaki: not talking to her, ignoring her emotional distress after she had multiple miscarriages, lowkey raping her, letting his father beat her, intercepting letters from her friends to completely isolate her, not helping her take care of their children + also mistreating them… the list goes on. And after all that time, Misaki tells him off for not protecting Mamoru and she duels him, and THAT’S what gets him to start “accepting her”?????? (Not even *respecting*! The word they use is “ACCEPTING”)????????? Fuckin pardon???? 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 I’m reeeeeally fucking sorry (I’m not sorry at all), but you’re NOT going to make me like this man just because he decided to “accept” Misaki after 15 YEARS of mistreating her and their children! Him having a sad home life because his parents didn’t like each other and he didn’t want that to happen to him and Misaki so he decided to just mistreat her anyways is a really bad way of explaining his actions (not like I would’ve been happy with any excuse, by the way; he sucks regardless). The author trying to give him a redemption arc just doesn’t sit right with me. Your parents didn’t like each other? Boohoo. You’re a grown ass man and you abused your wife for 15 years. I want you dead. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Another reviewer responded to his excuse of ~dissociating into the mountain to get away from his emotions~ with “If he's the mountain bring me the military grade TNT stat” , and I just think that sums up my thoughts.

Random thing: the fact that the map of this world is basically just an upside-down map of *our* world (and the countries pretty much line up) is pretty interesting.

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narsere's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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readandfindout's review

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emotional medium-paced

4.75

I know virtually everyone I've seen read this didn't read the original Theonite books first, but I definitely think it's the way to go! The story connected with me more than it might have without the context of the Theonite series.

Style/writing: 4.5 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Characters: 5 stars
Plot: 5 stars
Worldbuilding: 4.5 stars

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eleonorehilbig's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

the story, the characters and their development, the resolution of the story as nearly a third of the book deals with what comes after were handsdown a 5 star read for me. i also absolutely loved how the women were written.

Spoiler

i mean the duel at the end was an absolute masterpiece

however - i absolutely HATE infodumps. pages upon pages of it. we're reading through an actual history lesson that one of the main characters attends ffs.

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angstifies's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

incredible book.
the characters and dynamics were so well written it blew my mind, this world and magic system are super interesting and it had the literal best fighting scenes i’ve ever read.

probably one of the best standalone fantasy books out there, i truly loved this story and how it progressed so much, and i couldn’t have thought of a better ending, wow

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lilifane's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I expected an epic fantasy adventure. What I got instead was emotional damage.
Because I ignored the subtitle of the book. "A Theonite War Story" should have prepared me for... an actual war story. With all the gruesome horrors of war. Yeah, that's on me. Probably not the best time to read the book given the current global situation, either.

But! I really really really loved it. I hated it, but I loved it. It hurt, but it was SO good.
The character work is exceptional. It's fantastic, maybe even the best I've ever encountered. The main characters and points of view are a mother and her firstborn son. And I loooooove them both with all my heart. But all the side characters are amazing as well. All of them are flawed, which makes them so real.

But since this is such a character-driven story, the plot and action take a very long time to develop. Even then, I would say the climax of the story is in the middle of the book, with epic and creative magic/battle sequences. The second half mainly deals with the aftermath. And it's so impactful and painful. Because you care so much for these characters, it physically hurts to see them suffer and process the trauma. But the character arks, their development, the way relationships and dynamics change are worth it in the end, at least they were for me.

I can't say I enjoyed the direction the plot took. I wish it had gone in 10 different directions tbh. But I realize that this wasn't about the plot, but about the effects that war has on the individuals who have to live through it. It's also about love and duty, about community and survival, family and friendships.

Although the characters are what makes this book so special, I really enjoyed the world building and atmosphere. The mix of fantasy elements, magic and traditional values with advanced technology reminded me a little of Studio Ghibli movies, especially the ones that have war as a theme as well. And the action sequences are actually really good. I usually don't care for action unless it's interesting and can hold my attention. Which is the case here.

I don't know if I can recommend this book to anyone. But definitely to people who value character-driven stories and like to suffer. Just check trigger and content warnings beforehand, please.

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fayesreads_'s review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow I adored this book… This is very much a blend of The Poppy War’s brutality with ATLA’s elemental magic. This book was profound, it had so many quotes that moved me, brought me to tears, made me laugh/smile, or broke my heart in half. I can’t fully comprehend that this is a stand alone novel & this is just it??? I need more of them & gah it was so fricken good. I do feel like the first 150-200 pages got quite info dumpy at times, but boy was the story ever worth it once it got into it!! I was expecting something very different from the ending as well so it’s wild to me that it was left on the note that it was, but I also found it unexpected and beautiful. I really did not know where this book was gonna go at any given moment & it absolutely kept me on my toes & I am obsessed.

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