Shadow of the Fox

Book Title: Shadow of the Fox

Author: Julie Kagawa

Series: Shadow of the Fox #1

Date Started: April 15th 2020

Date Completed: April 12th 2020

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Historical

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I was approved a copy of Night of the Dragon, the third instalment in this series, to review without knowing it was a later book. So, I wanted to jump into the first novel and, however brutally I'm going to criticise this book in this review, I did enjoy it. It was worth the thing that frustrated me, and I will probably read the next book. But, wow, did it infuriate me.

Inspired by Japanese mythology (and, I'm assuming, history), Shadow of the Fox is a fantasy adventure that feels a lot more like the legendary epics I read as a kid than a lot of YA stories I've come across. Which is a very strong point. The mythology is great, made accessible without losing its authenticity, and quite frankly refreshing, especially in this genre. The guy still gets to do more than the girl does, but at least the girl is active and has some unique attributes - I'll take it, okay.

But, unfortunately, this book reminded me why I stopped reading the token 'Young Adult' novels unless I heard anything especially good. Look, I hate the assumption that all YA is shallow and vapid because it's simply incorrect and way too generalising for what is essentially an age-range target audience. But there are a handful of clichés and writing 'quirks' that repeatedly pop up in the genre, and Shadow of the Fox has pretty much all of them. This self-important, flippant narration and way of speaking is, firstly, patronising for a teenage audience, but also just annoying; unnecessary (inexplicable) love triangles; indulgent exposition and info-dumping; first person that tries to keep secrets from the reader - which never works if your characters lack the subtext that every character in this book lacks. The stories are, often, worth it - and yes, it was for this book. But wow, I was so close to abandoning the book because of it.

I've already mentioned that the YA style of writing annoyed me, but a lot of pretty simple techniques were messy as well. You get hit over the head with the plot, with no chance of using your own brain to engage with the story and make what were already quite obvious connections. I also had a hard time keeping track of the perspectives in each chapter. We have dual perspective narration, switching between chapters, but both are told in first-person (which I already think is misused at the best of times), but they are literally indistinguishable from each other until the other character's name is mentioned. I was reading scenes getting confused because one of the characters was internally talking about something they didn't know about - oh wait, no it's the other protagonist. I see. Yumeko and Tatsumi, our protagonists, are two very different people. Making their first-person narration unique shouldn't be that difficult.

On the positive side, what I did love was this story and its world. Japanese culture and history has always been of interest to me, but even if you aren't as familiar with it, Kagawa explains the important parts and lets the rest sink in through osmosis in the background. Story structure-wise, it's a bit like The Last Airbender, with the travelling companions meeting various legendary spirits encountering problems with the modern world and solving their problems on their journey. That was the big thing that made it feel like a genuine traditional epic; the big overarching story encompassing these little satisfying narratives. Once the action kicks in about 40% through the book I started racing through it because it was exciting, it was fun! And the characters talked less and had things to think about other than being angsty (the key to good storytelling, ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, is having things happen).

There was, predictably, a cop-out ending and that added to my frustration with this book that could've been a firm favourite of mine if it was just a little less messy. I hate it when authors make promises to their reader and refuse to pay out on them because they want to stretch it across a whole series or make the reader squirm while they wait for an incredibly predictable thing to happen - I don't need the angst, and I don't find it satisfying. Convince me that the characters are in actual peril and maybe I can buy into spinning out the tension, but when I can tell you right now how the series is going to end, pulling it out longer is asking for my enjoyment of it to be stretched thin when it could be bubbling over in one book.