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[moonsheen]

Finished the first book in The Twelve Kingdoms series. (tokyopop translation. very readable on account of a.o. smith. could've been better if someone had HIRED A COPY EDITOR, though.)

Thoughts?

...i... i want a magical nation-affirming unicorn too.

Comments

[moonsheen.livejournal.com]

No, I absolutely hear you. I basically had to FORCE myself through the first few chapters because I kept wanting to whack Youko upside the head and tell her to get a grip. The thing is, the book SERIOUSLY picks the hell up as soon as she's dumped into a situation where she begins to figure out HAVING A SPINE MIGHT BE A GOOD THING. And it's done so well and so naturally I am actually deeply impressed by the author in making her so amazingly useless to begin with. Youko spends the whole rest of the book MAKING UP for the mistakes she made in the first few chapters, and you really applaud her for doing so. (I guess what I'm basically saying is: SHE GETS BETTER. AND PRETTY EARLY ON. She has a moment of kinda annoying indecision towards the end but she explains herself there)

Plus the author takes a moment to use her initial mindset as a chance to take a Very Vicious Jab at traditional japanese society and gender roles. Which I thought was pretty dang ballsy of her.