Thanks for the ARC again, I really appreciate it.
But this was let down for me.
The book read like it was trying to hard to show off Japan but not in the best way, the best way to explain is when Americans try too hard to show off that they know Japanese, inserting random words that some people would not have known unless they watched anime. For a book being centered in Japan I don't expect to see words like baka and stuff like that because why wouldn't the whole book be in Japanese too? It confused me and did not make sense to put those words in there.
All in all, in keeping with the anime aspect, almost the entire book was filler, constant back stories and then present time. It felt like whiplash.

This story was incredible until it ended. A great adventure that mixed two time lines (contemporary Japan and several centuries of old Japan), added kami (Japanese spirits), a pinch of found families and a quest and you get the core of The Legend of Akikumo.

We start following a very mischievous fox spirit (kitsune) with a wrecked past that was left "safe" in a shrine by her mentor/savior, a lone wolf spirit (more of an ancient god servant), and after a fall out with some of the local kitsune is assigned a task: finding her lost mentor and making sense of may strange things happening around.

But alas, she can run a quest on her own and so she will find her path (literally, since she is incapable of moving around the human contemporary world being a 700+ year old kami) thanks to the son of the shrine's priest (human obviously) and would uncover a hard truth.

This contemporary adventure is accompany, chapter in, chapter out, by the background story that links Aki-chan and Kat-chan in this sweet fatherly like relation of two spirits roaming together old Japan or almost 400 years (yeah they get to see a lot happening!).

I was hooked up from the beginning, since the author's writing style is very cinematic and you feel like you are moving around with the characters, it actually reminded me a lot of anime like Inuyasha, in its duality of times, quest sense and Japanese culture.

An added bonus is the glossary included that would help those not so acquainted with the Japanese terminology, well spread throughout the book.

The only downfall for me would be the ending scene, where I found a lack of purpose towards the following challenges introduced. I would had also enjoy it more if it development a deeper relation between the main character and her human companion, since it felt like bits were missing or underdeveloped.

Still, is a very recommended read if you wish to have a great time traveling around, learning more about Japanese culture and history and at the end of the day, finding you place in the world.

An ARC of this book was kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this one so much. It has my aesthetic. It has my vibes. It has all the things that I really love. It just didn't quite get there.

This is the story of Ketsueki, who is one of the last kitsunes to be born in the last several hundred years. At this point, she's about 700 years old and she hasn't seen her best friend and mentor, Akikumo, for quite a long time. She's pretty confident that he's still alive but everyone else is telling her that he's probably dead. She is sent out to go and find him and figure out what has happened. But she is not sent out alone, with the task she is accompanied by a human who has the ability to see yokai. It flips back and forth between the past when she first met Akikumo and the present where she is searching for him.

The premise of this book is fascinating. I love Japanese culture and this had a lot of that embedded in it. It was very helpful that at the beginning it had a section that explained all of the different terms and all of the different people. It was a little disconcerting at times having to flip back and forth trying to understand the terms if you don't have an understanding of Japanese culture.

The way it is written, it's marketed as YA, but it reads a bit more middle grade. The main character, while she is 700 years old, it is hard to imagine that she has those years of experience behind her. She acts very young which is why I started to get some of these middle-grade vibes. Especially with how she interacts with the human that she's a companion with and a lot of the authority figures. She's constantly demeaning humans and downgrading them into something that isn't worth it. It gets very repetitive in that mindset. It's constantly this human bashing. I sort of understand where she is coming from. She's got a lot of back history. But it's hard to get through this read when it is every other sentence or three times on one page and then three times on the next page. It gets a little grating.

A lot of characters didn't feel like they had any heart and soul. They felt very flat and they could have been switched out for anybody else. I don't think this was as developed as it could have been to really make this epic adventure in finding oneself or just giving it some kind of climactic experience. This book didn't really have that. You kind of go through and you're supposed to connect with Ketsueki and you just don't. It didn't have enough humanity in it to really build it up into a place where there was this development or there was that pull. This book was marketed as this grand adventure of figuring out what happened to her mentor, to her best friend, and it kind of got there but didn't. Yeah, there was some journey. Yeah, there was meeting some of these more monstrous yokai. But it didn't bring any passion to it and I think that's what was lacking for me in this story. I want to see more of that development. I want there to be this journey. I want to feel the journey. I just don't want to be given a bunch of words on a page that say:
- She started out here
- Some things happen
- You're supposed to feel some things because this is her backstory
- Humans are bad
- Here's the ending
That is what I feel like I got. I need to feel like I went on a journey and I can now sit down and relax. but it felt like I was driven around in a circle and dropped off on the wrong street.

There's so much going for it. The cover is absolutely gorgeous and it does play with a lot of those anime and manga themes that I really like. But it felt like a slight ripoff of some of those story arcs. So would I recommend this read? Maybe not. I mean if you like reading in this genre, I mean, you might find some pieces you really truly enjoy in this read.

Unfortunately this book really wasn’t for me, I was so eager to read this based on the synopsis and the stunning cover, but the actual story let me down. The story and writing was chaotic, it just was such a chore to finish. The characters were not developed well and felt completely one dimensional, sad to say I wasn’t a fan of this

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I saw this cover and the summary and was hooked. I had my fingers crossed that I’d be approved for an ARC and I was! I looked at the reviews before reading (which I normally don’t do, but I’ve been burned a lot this month so far and I wanted appropriate expectations going on). The reviews were… bad. I still had hope but it was a bit tempered.

However!!! I felt like I was transported back to my anime-loving younger self! It gives me all the vibes of InuYasha, despite it being completely different story wise. I loved it immediately.

The story is told in dual POV: one contemporary and one historic but both Kestueki. It was done marvelously. You can tell the different maturity level between the POVs.

I also got some mushy feelings surrounding the relationship bonds between the characters. It was very “homey”.

My only complaints are that I hate the last page of the book (and really that whole chapter shouldn’t be there!) and that I wish there was more banter between Ketosis and Yamato. Otherwise, I loved it.

If you are (or were) an anime fan, I recommend. It does have a slow-pace with pops of actions, exactly like InuYasha.

I would be interested in seeing this expanded into a series because I want to see what happens!

I am a Teen and YA reviewer, and this was marketed to me as a Teen and YA book, but it is quite clearly an elementary or middle grade read. The actions and prose of the main character speak to a 4th or 5th grade reading level and while I'm sure people looking for that type of reading experience would greatly appreciate this book, I personally feel lied to about what I thought would be a Japanese Mythological Young Adult Book experience. So, unfortunately, I would not recommend this book as it is currently marketed, but I feel like it would make a great addition to a 4th-7th grade library.

Okay, let’s start with the positives of this book: the cover is absolutely gorgeous. It was what brought me into this, at least the primary thing that did. The second was the concept, it’s an interesting concept, one I’d generally be interested in reading.

The only thing was… this book is bad. Like, really bad. It was almost a herculean task to get through this one. The writing was very inconsistent and the writing told much more than showed. The sentences were stifled by their poor grammar usage and the excessive use of Japanese words throughout this English book. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, especially with words that are commonly used in English, such as katana, but words that otherwise would have been translated if this was a translated piece were left in this book. Words with easy translations, such as “baka.”

Honestly, this book reads like a bad anime fan-fiction. The book definitely seems to romanticize Japanese culture in a short-sighted matter. This book just isn’t worth the time.

trigger warning
<spoiler> trauma, being orphaned, grief </spoiler>

As Ketsueki is tasked with finding out where here mentor vanished to, she doesn't mind the task as much as the company - a human who is able to see Yokai and might succeed his father, who is the shrine's priest, one day.

We have two timelines: The present with the mission, and the past. How Akikumo found Ketsueki and adopted her, how they traveled Japan and solved problems for Yokai.

Where do I even start? The characters are typical manga stereotypes. We have the protagonist who is childish, annoying, but can always be persuaded to do something for yummy food. The mysterious bishi mentor who never reveals too much. The badboy who might hide a good heart. There is no more depth to them.

To show it's really set in Japan, there is a ton of Japanese words dropped throughout the novel. A katana is a special type of sword so it's reasonable to use the term. Using honorifics shows how the characters think about each other. But when the whole narrative is in English, where is the sense in using the word baka, or why does there have to be a huge glossary at the beginning so you know what obistring means in Japanese? Why not just say obistring so your audience will know what you're talking about?

My main problem is the bad writing. Prime example: As Ketsueki hears that a human will accompany her, she immedeatly plans to just do her thing and put him in a train home so she'll be rid of him once she found Akikumo.
Three pages later, she does not know what trains are and supposedly never heard about them before.

I can get behind the idea of an ivory tower. You live sheltered lifes, are not much in contact with humans. But she is told what a phone and a plane is, but never heard about a train which is much older? She has learned CPR but never spoke to a Yokai who recently travelled the human world? Or has problems by humans cutting down woods and shrinking the habitat?

There is a weird thing going on with the language used. Yes, apart from the constant dropping of Japanese terms. In one scene, they put a wolf's corpse on the back of a horse to transport him. The phrased used was "we situated him..." - sorry, what? Didn't you find something more stilted?

I am sorry. I wanted to like this. But it appears the best thing I could find is the beautiful cover.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy I recieved.

I liked the idea of this book. But was this book itself good? Not so much. I read it going in thinking it’s YA and unfortunately, it felt more like a middle grade book with the writing style. It was very basic and very minimal when describing things. If we even got a description at all.

There is a glossary of sorts at the beginning explaining the terms used in the book. That’s great and all, except when you’re reading an e-book copy and it makes it extremely difficult to go back and forth.

This book sounded like it had potential to be a really good. But fell flat when it came to the writing style and the lack of description that your typical fantasy book would have.

The ending was pretty generic and puts you on the cliff for maybe there will be another book. Maybe there won’t be. Whatever the answer may be, sorry but I won’t be reading it.

The story was fast phased and the chapters has past and present way of writing. It was good arc. But the story was short and it was good. The characters has some scope to develop.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this book, especially because I usually enjoy Japanese-inspired fantasy books. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't really get into this book. I enjoyed the first ~50 pages, I suppose, but then it couldn't grab my attention anymore. The writing felt immature and the dialogues felt stilted. The MC came off as really immature too and all the characters felt flat. I wasn't invested in any of them and thus, I couldn't care less about the supposedly emotional ending.

First of all, I thought this book would have a series of groundbreaking scenes but there isn't so much into that department. Through her journey finding Akikumo, both Ketsueki and the delinquent son of the shrine, Yamato has encountered a lot of demons. But all of those fighting scenes are so monotone and predictable. The narration of these particular scenes is a very simple and straightforward kind of style. For readers who adore fully-maximized actions then this book doesn't appeal in you that aspect.

Second, there are so many info dumps which make the story is less focused on crafting its word-building. I've found myself keep turning back and forth between the pages and the terminology to find out the meaning of Japanese terms written in the form of romaji - which tired me out, drastically.

Third, the characters' developments are underdeveloped. Though I could see the relationship between a mentor and mentee in Akikumo and Ketsueki but sadly, I don't see how much interactions incurred between Yamato and Ketsueki. It's all kind of hasty developments, with each chapter goes back and forth to the past - Ketsueki and Akikumo's story and to the present - Ketsueki and Yamato's story.

Fourth, I'm not a fan of the writing style in this book. They sound immatured and some sentences do feel odd when I've read them. It isn't enjoyable to read but alas, I admitted that the idea of the storyline could be far more than amazing if the writing style is up to date.

In terms of plotwise, there were some plot holes that the author missed to explain explicitly especially at the part 'the cause that has taken Akikumo's life' and the unfinished resolution about the harbored hatred in Ketsueki towards the human. The way the story is ended just single-handledly leaving me dangling on a cliff wondering 'is that all?'

Lastly, I hope that the author tries to make the world-building of the story more intricately explained, detailed, and not just dumping the whole info in the preface. I think young teens out there would enjoy the simplicity in this story and treat it as a quick read. As for me, this story doesn't meet up my taste in young adult fiction.

Thank you Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op and Foxtale Press for providing me an e-arc of The Legend Of Akikumo in return for an honest review.

I was looking forward to this book but am disappointed. The plot could have been amazing, however the writing and characters dampen what could have been a really interesting Japanese inspired book. The writing felt immature and lots of the Japanese words such as "Baka" felt out of place, especially when used in the past. If you are like me and have a love and knowledge of Japanese culture, this book may be hard for you to read. I felt as if the author was expecting us to know nothing of the culture. What is a beautiful country, felt flat. I was very disappointed that the amazing looking female lead (the cover is stunning!) Came off very immature and instead I was focused more on the male lead. Unfortunately I could not recommend this book.

I wanted to love this book. The cover is absolutely stunning, and the premise and the fact that it revolved around Kitsune and Yokai meant that I was immediately intrigued. Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me.

The main issue I had with it as the overuse of romanji in the text. It might have worked better if the words hadn't been italicized as well, because the change in font kept throwing me out of the text. However, it was also the inclusion of unnecessary words. I could understand using the romanji for certain words like 'torii' and the names of the Gods, but most of the words were easily translated and would have had more impact if the english had been used. It felt as though the language was being used as a crutch to create the setting, rather than the worldbuilding, and I feel that a bit more time spent on the world-building would have created the same effect. What I did like was the glossary at the start, which was well laid out in segments, although it was fustrating having to turn back so often for the words that I didn't know.

However, I also found the characters and world somewhat lacking, and I found myself unable to become invested - especially with the characters which fell a little more flat especially the main characters - Ketsue-chan and Yamato, and they felt stiff around one another, and while I understand they didn't like one another especially at the start it lacked any kind of dynamic to make me want to care about them or their interactions.

Overall, this was a disappointing read for me. However, I do feel that it will appeal to certain readers, especially younger ones, as to some extent it felt as though the writing was targeted at the younger end of YA.

I received an e-earc in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts are my own.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
First of all, look how pretty the cover is! It's gorgeous! I was drawn to this book primarily by the cover, but I ultimately read it because I love Asian fantasy, especially ones that revolve around the culture of Japan. That being said, this book didn't quite live up to my expectations.
Ketsue-chan is a kitsune, a fox spirit, who spent many years traveling with Akikumo, an okami. Eventually he leaves her at the Inari shrine with other kitsune. However, the other kitsune bully her and treat her horribly. One day, Inari sends Ketsue-chan to search for her beloved Akikumo, but there’s one condition: she must travel with Yamato, the delinquent son of the priest who can apparently see yokai. Ketsue-chan is not a fan of humans, but she relents and begins her search for Akikumo with Yamato at her side.
I think I expected this book to be a bit more similar to Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. Ketsue-chan and Yamato are pretty bland as far as characters though. They seemed a little stiff and I just didn’t really care for either of them. At the front of the book there’s a glossary. I’m fairly familiar with a lot of the words used as well as the concept/characteristics of the kami, but most readers would have to frequently utilize the glossary which might get annoying after a while. Not to mention that some Japanese words were just thrown in at random which just seemed unnecessary. However, I truly do like the setting and mythology so I appreciate the concept this book was aiming for. At some points, I felt like this book was more intended for younger audiences so maybe I just wasn’t in that audience. This book seems like it might be perfect for a rather specific group of readers, but I’m sad to say that I’m just not one of them. It’s also a pretty short read, so it’s possible I would have enjoyed it more if the Japanese mythology/folklore had been explored a bit more.

*I was given a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

I loved the concept of The Legend of Akikumo. A Japanese-inspired fantasy based around the legends of kitsune and okami seemed right up my alley. I’m a dedicated mythology fan and, although I don’t know much about Japanese legends, I knew enough to feel excited about this book.

Sadly it just wasn’t for me. I felt that there was a little too much Romanised Japanese used throughout, despite the helpful glossary at the beginning (which was very nicely laid-out, by the way). It almost felt superficial, and I wished there was a little more grounding in the physical world around our main character. I would have loved more descriptions of the rich world that obviously surrounds the cast, but I found it lacking.

That being said, the book was a nice quick read and I could certainly see it appealing to younger teenagers. It’s a pity it wasn’t up my alley, but I’m sure the right readership is out there somewhere!

It's a book that follows Ketsueki, a fox spirit, investigating the disappearance of her mentor.

I was skeptical at first. It seemed like a book by an American author a bit too fascinated by anime and manga.

The first thing that struck (and irritated) me was all the romaji dropping. Never have I ever seen a translator leaving words like "ara ma" or "baka" in the translated text, so I see no reason why anyone would put them in a book inspired by the Japanese culture. I understand the use of words like torii or geta, but not terms that are easy to translate. It was ridiculous to read the narrator swear like a yakuza member. Ok, we get it, it's happening in Japan. There is no need to additionally foreignize the setting. And there is definitely no need to invent some fake-ass readings of common kanji just to fit your made-up names.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against being inspired by the Japanese culture. I think this book would be awesome if it was just inspired by manga or Japanese folklore. What I dislike is exoticizing the culture to the extent that the text becomes difficult to read with a straight face.

The story wasn't particularly interesting. 20% in and it was all flashbacks, slurs, and no plot. After that, the characters spent too much time hanging around, waiting for trains, talking. It seemed like the author had no idea for the novel outside of its setting.

The characters were boring and none of them seemed to have a unique personality. Sometimes, the narrator displayed some features of those "born sexy yesterday" characters. She was a 700-year-old spirit who had to ask a man for help with train tickets or reading a map. Oh, the tropes.

If you're thinking about reading this book, seriously, read some Noragami instead, you'll enjoy it more.

When I saw the cover and blurb, I wanted to read it. I have read many books that involve some form of Japanese mythology, especially ones that include the kitsune. I figured why not give this one a try!

The thing is the characters just didn't give me anything and the plot was lacking the action that I crave in stories like this.

Ketsueki's development is just very meh. From the beginning she is picking on humans because she just doesn't like them. It's what is talked about throughout the book. It kind of starts to feel redundant. There is resolve to her ways but it's just a very boring journey there.

Since this book is filled with a lot from Japanese culture there is a glossary in the front which is handy. I just feel that more could have been done for the characters and maybe the book's flaw lies in that it's short so you can't pack much in.

One thing I did like is that there was past and present chapters. It helps to bridge the gap between her being with her mentor and her searching for him. I did like the present more as it did have a bit more adventure to it.

Overall, maybe it's just me? I don't know. I just didn't mesh with it and it's not one I will be remembering. 🤷‍♀️

This book and I unfortunately didn't mesh. I think it's for a very specific kind of reader. There's a lot of detail, sometimes too much and it happens often. The glossary at the beginning of the book of terminology was a good touch given that the characters use honorifics a lot of readers may not be aware of, as well as an explanation of the monsters. The downside to that is constantly needing to go back to it to double check what words mean what. Its not an overly long book, easy to get through in a day which is always a plus and the plot wasn't hard to follow. It feels like it was written by someone who really loves the culture and mythology of Japan but something about it came off a little stiff to me.