Seemed okay at first, then I saw the tiny details that just annoyed me. Really, I was expecting a lot after finishing the amazing Red Winter trilogy by Annette Marie. The cover of Stormbreaker and the entire series look so good too.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed. From the first few chapters, I clearly saw the lack of research put into place with the setting, use of honorifics, and everything else, really. As someone who genuinely loves Japan, I found it so…weird how the establishment of the settings seemed so….copy pasted from Wikipedia. The honorific -sama and a bunch of other words like hai are misused. Instead of sentences like “Sama please, enough for one day, hai?” It should be, “(Last name)-sama, please, enough for one day, ne?” I feel like this mistake could’ve been easily avoided with the proper research. It just came across as really cringe-y and unrealistic.
As for the plot, it seemed really good. I mean, Japanese steampunk sounded badass. It just falls apart after the first chapter because everything is so wordy. I understand that the author needed to describe everything considering not many people who read this are familiar with Japanese culture, but it ruins the entire book for people like me, who are.
I wasn’t able to go past 20% in because I was just…done, but I’m marking it as read because I was able to correctly guess what happens in the end anyway.
Title: Stormdancer (The Lotus War #1)
Author: Jay Kristoff
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fiction
Source: E-book
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
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Rating: 1/5
