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A review by veeloucagraph
Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
(The book should come with a TW for arachnophobia. I had a panic attack, as I’m highly phobic and untreated)
This is like an anime I could sit down and watch and have so much fun. The love child of Noragami, Yona of the Dawn and Kamisama Kiss. My favorites! However, reading it, is not the same experience. The characters are all mildly to very interesting but there aren’t enough deep, heartfelt interactions between them for you to really believe their attraction or friendship. I understand this is a slow burn romance but the ending of the book should make you feel much more devastated and hit harder than it did, but it didn't because of their lack of tension.
There were many unnecessary plot points, that would work in an anime series because each episode sometimes brings another threat or expansion of the world for fun and to fill runtime, but in the book it annoys you because the characters have a plot to carry out that keeps being postponed for irrelevant things.
The setting is incredible, the japanese mythology is obviously captivating, I did enjoy going back to the glossary in case I didn’t understand what a japanese word used meant, but I think there wasn’t enough explanation behind why each territory is named after the four elements. The little we really got to learn was the Shadow Clan’s rules because 1/2 protagonist is from there. Which brings me to my next point: there wasn’t enough shown or done in this book. It ends needing you to read the second because there are a million things yet to be done that you guess occur by the end of this one, but they just don’t, for the sake of more books, I guess.
On the bright side, I found the villain strong, the ending was unexpected and the writing, although not poetic, artistic or flowery, worked with the story.
It is a really fun time, but objectively, I felt like that was all it was.
This is like an anime I could sit down and watch and have so much fun. The love child of Noragami, Yona of the Dawn and Kamisama Kiss. My favorites! However, reading it, is not the same experience. The characters are all mildly to very interesting but there aren’t enough deep, heartfelt interactions between them for you to really believe their attraction or friendship. I understand this is a slow burn romance but the ending of the book should make you feel much more devastated and hit harder than it did, but it didn't because of their lack of tension.
There were many unnecessary plot points, that would work in an anime series because each episode sometimes brings another threat or expansion of the world for fun and to fill runtime, but in the book it annoys you because the characters have a plot to carry out that keeps being postponed for irrelevant things.
The setting is incredible, the japanese mythology is obviously captivating, I did enjoy going back to the glossary in case I didn’t understand what a japanese word used meant, but I think there wasn’t enough explanation behind why each territory is named after the four elements. The little we really got to learn was the Shadow Clan’s rules because 1/2 protagonist is from there. Which brings me to my next point: there wasn’t enough shown or done in this book. It ends needing you to read the second because there are a million things yet to be done that you guess occur by the end of this one, but they just don’t, for the sake of more books, I guess.
On the bright side, I found the villain strong, the ending was unexpected and the writing, although not poetic, artistic or flowery, worked with the story.
It is a really fun time, but objectively, I felt like that was all it was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror