Eona

Book Title: Eona

Author: Alison Goodman

Series: Eon #2

Date Started: March 4th  2024

Date Completed: March 30th 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

It’s been a long time since I read Eon, the first book in this duology. Upon revisiting the series, I found it just as wide and sweeping, but perhaps less grounded than what I remember of the first one. Regardless, it was definitely fun and captures the same epic scale that made Eon so impactful.

One of the key things that stuck in my memory around this series was how it tackled adult themes in a mature way; sexual abuse, court politics, gender identity, religion and extremism are all foundations for the world Eona finds herself in, and this second book once again does a really good job of introducing younger readers to these themes and tropes often used in epic fantasy in a largely responsible way.

My main gripe with this novel was actually in its romantic distractions; it gets a bit lost in its love triangle (that it also never fully commits to). I seem to remember Eon was refreshingly free from the YA tropes of teenage angst in favour of a varied cast of characters all with complex platonic and romantic relationships rather than labels. That’s not to say that those relationships aren’t still there, but we end up seeing far more of Eona’s forbidden love than her friendships and fractured alliances. The ending also leant into this - feeling similar to a Disney fairytale - and I found it quite old fashioned from an earlier era of the YA genre.

Eona is one in handful of books I’ve set out to read this year to finish various book series I started as a child/teenager. I’m not setting out to read everything - there are some I have no interest in revisiting - but Eona was definitely around the top of my list and I’m glad I picked it up. It was an enjoyable experience, even if I was able to notice its pitfalls more easily as an older reader.

A Crane Among Wolves

Book Title: A Crane Among Wolves

Author: June Hur

Date Started: March 1st  2024

Date Completed: March 3rd 2024

Genres: Historical, Mystery, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

I’ve wanted to read a June Hur book for a long time, and I absolutely devoured this one as soon as I laid hands on it. It took me three days to read this whole novel, and the hype seems to be real because I can’t wait to pick up another one.

A Crane Among Wolves feels like a historical K-Drama in novel form; keeping the best bits of the genre, pacing and politics, and taking full advantage of the literary medium to spin out the mysteries, motivations and historical detail. If you read the Author’s Note at the end you’ll also find that a lot of the history is completely true - and Hur strikes a good balance between fact and fiction to tell her story as well as represent the true events.

I also adored the places Hur chose to use Hangul (the Korean language’s alphabet) and gently elaborate on some traditional elements that perhaps readers unfamiliar with Korean culture might not be familiar with. It’s so subtle that it doesn’t turn the book into a history lesson, but even as a intermediate Korean learner I appreciated.

This book also had the perfect balance of romance versus plot for me. I often moan about the distraction of love arcs in derailing many a Young Adult novel, but Hur has a lovely satisfying sub plot that exists alongside the core narrative. I had a lot of fun with this book and I look forward to the next.

The Cat Who Saved Books

Book Title: The Cat Who Saved Books

Author: Sōsuke Natsukawa, Louise Heal Kawai (translator)

Date Started: February 26th  2024

Date Completed: March 1st 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Contemporary

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

Sarcastic cats leading humans on adventures, magical bookshops and morally challenged individuals remembering what lies beneath their misguided efforts? Someone please put this book in front of Miyazaki, it's a Ghibli adaptation waiting to happen.

Sometimes The Cat Who Saved Books is a bit on the nose with the story it's trying to tell - why books are precious despite the way some may use them for money, power or status in the modern world - but it's incredibly heartfelt. It feels like it could only be told this way against the landscape of Japan and its people's temperament, with their unique grasp of crippling modernity and intrinsic tradition.

While this story is absolutely universal, it feels quintessentially Japanese in its simplicity, adoration of feline souls and thoughtful philosophy that in itself says stop overthinking so much and recognise where you are right now. Where it critiques, it also says look beneath the surface; everyone's trying their best but some just need to be reminded to correct their course.

I also really enjoyed the translator's note from Louise Heal Kawai both in her recognition of the terms that remained in Japanese and the journey of translation itself. The love for books is palpable in both her and Natsukawa's writing, and Kawai highlights a fitting inspiration as the labyrinths Theseus travelled through to find the Minotaur in Greek mythology. Despite my background in mythology, I hadn't even spotted it while reading and that in itself is a testament to how this novel tells its own transformative tale that appreciates the history of storytelling, but proves that there is still endless magic they offer the modern world.