An atmospheric story of war and loss.
A Japanese soldier encounters unforeseen enemies in Aleja’s supernatural war novel.
Seventeen-year-old Yoshida Takeshi hopes that joining the Japanese army will free him from the poverty and abuse of his aunt and uncle’s home. Perhaps by serving his country, he can make enough money to support himself and his younger sister Yuki. The only complication: There’s a war going on—the Japanese empire against the United States—and his service may require him to die honorably for the emperor. He and his unit are sent to the island of Omiyajima (previously known as Guam), a beautiful paradise—at least until the war takes its toll. Bombs flatten the jungle and his comrades commit atrocities against the local Chamorro people. Takeshi participates as little as he can manage without attracting attention to himself, but he knows what they are doing is wrong—and some hidden force on the island appears to agree. Invisible enemies attack the Japanese soldiers from the forest, leaving strange marks on those able to escape. With American battleships threatening from the ocean and mysterious attacks coming from the island, Takeshi turns to a Japanese-speaking Chamorro named Elena for help. But is it too late for those who have offended the spirit ancestors of Guam? Aleja’s smooth prose expertly builds tension, as here when Takeshi gets his first taste of the forest threat: “The trees began to move around Takeshi again. The strain in his eyes caused him to rub the water from them. Each time he did so, something seemed to encircle him, watching him. It moved through the branches like a snake, not like a man.” Not exactly a mystery or a horror yarn, the story powerfully explores the tremendous capacity of humans to be inhumane, even outside the context of the war. Aleja cleverly tells the story of Japanese-occupied Guam in an unexpected way that captures the tragic destruction of militarism.
An atmospheric story of war and loss.Pub Date: July 11, 2024
ISBN: 9798990039025
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Taotao-Ta Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
