September 10, 2018

Review: Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa

Shadow of the Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1)
Author: Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: October 2, 2018
Pages: 400
Format: Galley/NetGalley

One thousand years ago, the great Kami Dragon was summoned to grant a single terrible wish—and the land of Iwagoto was plunged into an age of darkness and chaos.

Now, for whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers, a new wish will be granted. A new age is about to dawn.

Raised by monks in the isolated Silent Winds temple, Yumeko has trained all her life to hide her yokai nature. Half kitsune, half human, her skill with illusion is matched only by her penchant for mischief. Until the day her home is burned to the ground, her adoptive family is brutally slain and she is forced to flee for her life with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll.

There are many who would claim the dragon’s wish for their own. Kage Tatsumi, a mysterious samurai of the Shadow Clan, is one such hunter, under orders to retrieve the scroll…at any cost. Fate brings Kage and Yumeko together. With a promise to lead him to the scroll, an uneasy alliance is formed, offering Yumeko her best hope for survival. But he seeks what she has hidden away, and her deception could ultimately tear them both apart.

With an army of demons at her heels and the unlikeliest of allies at her side, Yumeko’s secrets are more than a matter of life or death. They are the key to the fate of the world itself.

Review: I have to say, I really really enjoyed this book. It was so rich in Japanese culture, folklore and mythology! So I am definitely a sucker for books that explore things like this, but honestly, I was blown away by this. You can definitely tell Julie Kagawa thoroughly researched everything for this series! I really felt like I was immersed in the Japanese culture reading this. We get to experience through Yumeko and Tatsumi a number of different things in this culture. It was absolutely beautiful! And the folklore. I loved just how much the Japanese folklore took center stage. Our main character Yumeko is a kitsune, a yokai. We see her and Tatsumi dealing with Oni, Gaki, Yurei, Amanjaku. So much folklore in this! I loved how beautifully the Japanese culture and folklore and mythology were brought together to make this story. Everything just worked so well together. 

Yumeko is a kitsune who has had the task of transporting a piece of the dragon scroll to another temple after hers is attacked by Oni and Amanjaku put upon her. She is the only one who could really survive and escape without it being seen as questionable or odd since she was just a lowly girl. She knows she will never make it on her own with people chasing the scroll so she teams up with Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan who was sent to retrieve the scroll to make it there. Their whole dynamic revolves around Yumeko keeping it quite that she has the scroll and that she is a kitsune so Tatsumi doesn't kill her for it. He just thinks she will lead him to it. But as they battle demons, and unravel how deep Satomi's plan to get the scroll goes, they seem to trust each other more and work more together to avoid it getting into her hands, since Satomi is a blood mage. I thought watching their whole dynamic change the longer they traveled together was cool. It went from only use the other as a means to an end to actually starting to form some type of friendship. And for Tatsumi, whose been taught never to get close to anyone, that's huge. We also see Yumeko grow from an incredibly naive girl who thinks everyone is good somehow and doesn't even understand sarcasm, to a girl who learns to use her power and strength and starts to question and sense when things aren't right. I think these two are fantastic main characters! 

I thought all the characters we have in this book were incredibly interesting. The first character we meet, Suki, is actually killed off like asap. I thought that was going to be the end of her and her chapter was only there as intro to Lady Satomi. Imagine my surprise when she pops back up as a ghost or hitodama. I was definitely not expecting to see her again so that was a pleasant surprise. We also see another character introduced in Suki's chapter, come back later on and play a huge part in the second half of the book, Taiyo Daisuke, of the royal family. He is introduced by talking to Suki in the first chapter and he then appears and joins Yumeko and Tatsumi on their journey about halfway through. He is also a really cool character. He is one of those people that once he has made a vow, will not break it and do whatever he can to fulfill it. I really liked this about him. He may be a royal, but he's also a good person. He is also an incredibly strong fighter. We see him pretty much at the same level as Tatsumi with fighting skill. I thought this was great because that made him a great and powerful ally for Yumeko for her journey. He also knows his way around pretty well so that's a plus. And Okame, the ronin, or disgraced samurai. He starts off by ambushing Yumeko and Tatsumi with his ronin buddies, but ends up flipping sides and being another solid ally for fighter for Yumeko on her journey. By the end of the book, he's grown on me some.   

The only thing that brought this book down a little bit was that it was a bit slow paced with the action and plot moving forward for most of the book. We'd get a demon fight, then a lull with more journey, then another demon fight, then a lull, then some new piece if info for the story, etc. It took a bit for us to really get a lot of the info for moving the plot forward. Most of the book was just trying to make it to the priest/monk who could tell Yumeko where to bring the scroll without being killed.

I'm really looking forward to book 2, Demon of the Blade. The ending is so packed full of plot twists and action that it is setting up for a really solid second book. We see more people officially join Yumeko on her journey. We see something happen to Tatsumi, something happen to Satomi. I'm definitely interested in finding out more about whose behind the things dealing with Satomi in the epilogue! That epilogue was huge in terms of plot! It also seems like we're going to be learning more about the Shadow Clan, Tatsumi's cursed sword, the leader of the Shadow Clan. I'm incredibly excited to see all the new information we'll learn in Demon of the Blade! There's definitely a lot more going on than we've been told so far.