Beautiful Story about a Mother and her son

Beautiful Story about family dynamics, generations and progress vs tradition. Absolutely a five star book for me.

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Very good book

This is certainly a story worth reading! It wasn’t what I expected going into it, but it was a positive surprise.

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The first half is great, then not so much

The beginning drags a bit but the first half of the book is phenomenal. The characters are so vivid, we have a 14-year-old who actually behaves like a 14-year-old! And all the characters are flawed but so real and you just have to like them (well, except one).
The magic is not super original but very solid, and definitely one of the top ones of elemental magic. The fight scenes are really well written, in the way that they don't indulge in violence but also don't gloss over things. The message is clear: War is an ugly thing that should happen to no one. And this is one of the things I really, really liked about this book!
And the one major death scene is tragic but so absolutely beautiful... I was almost in tears.

Then, there's a second major event which had to happen, but also I didn't like the execution. I do know that the characters are flawed which really came out best in this scene, but I just didn't like it. Also, one of the main characters has such a major character change, which came too quickly for me at least. I do like the ending, I do like that we get to stay in this world and grow with the characters, that we get to see how they deal with their grief, but I did not like the second half of the book as much as the first.
It is supposed to be bittersweet and I suppose that it is, but it's just not really my piece of cake.

So, all in all, the first half of the book left me in awe and I was sure I had found a new favourite and recommended it to everyone I know. The second half did diminish this feeling a bit, but it's still a good book.

I don't know any Japanese so I have no idea whether the narrator pronounced things correctly. I sometimes was annoyed when characters were speaking to each other in foreign languages, but it was fine overall.

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Stick to it

An amazing story with a slooow start, its worth not to dnf it! One of the best stories Ive read and will re read!

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gripping storytelling

do not let the "fantasy" label put you out of reading this book, it is an amazing story! characters have depth, growth and failures with believable arcs. The writer manages to bring a whole world filled with empathy and you will find yourself unable to stop until you reach the end.
it is one of those books that you can't stop reading but you do not want to finish as to not say goodbye to the characters and the world. 10/10 will read again.

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Japanese pronunciations completely off

The book is amazing, however they should've considered a narrator with at least minor knowlegde of Japanese name pronunciation, or at least instructed him on it.
This isn't the narrators fault at all but I can't help but cringe every time he says '-kun' like 'kan' and I don't see why he wasn't taught how to say 'yoroshiku onegaishimasu' even vaguely correctly when it came up in the story. One time he even confused two characters.
It's a shame because the story is brilliant, but these mispronunciations keep breaking the immersion.

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Sehr emotional, aber auch ein bisschen Langatmig

Die Geschichte spielt in einer "patriarchischen" 19/20Jahrhundert Japan-style welt mit Magischen Fähigkeiten, die in vererbt werden.
Die Hauptcharakteren werden schön detailliert beschrieben, und generell bietet die Welt, die Wang generiert hat auch einiges zu erkunden.
Dennoch konnte ich mich nicht ganz mit dem langsamen Erzählstil und einigen "Ungereimtheiten" anfreunden.
Ich musste zwischendrin etwas kämpfen um doch weiterzuhören...
Daher die 3Sterne. die Geschichte schwankt für mich zwischen 2Sternen und 4Sternen;
Emotionen /emotionale Szenen bringt der Autor allerdings hervorragend rüber.

Der Sprecher ist solide und sehr gut zu verstehen

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Startet langsam und lässt dann stark nach

Mit sind die guten Bewertungen ein Rätsel. Das Magiesystem ist zwar kreativ, aber es existiert quasi kein Spannungsbogen. Man wartet die ganze Zeit darauf, dass die Geschichte endlich losgeht.

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PRONOUNCIATION

The story is simply amazing. Thoughtfull, with well realized characters and an interesting plot, the story is a pure success. But one big negative point is the narration. Generally, Andrew Tell does a good job, but the titles, which are orinigally Japanese are almost all mispronounced and it GRATES. How could it be that no one bothered to quality check this? The -kun almost sounds like a vey bad word, -chan rhymes with man and -sama fluctuates like it is part of the actual names. It feels like noone bothered to tell Andrew Tell that these titles are rooted in an actual culture and have a CORRECT pronounciation and aren't a result of M.L. Wangs imagination.

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8 Leute fanden das hilfreich