SYNOPSIS
Every millennium, whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers has the power to call the great Kami Dragon from the sea and ask for one wish. The time is near...and the missing pieces of the scroll will be sought throughout the land of Iwagoto.
When demons kill half-kitsune Yumeko’s adoptive family, she’s forced to flee her home with one part of the ancient scroll. Fate thrusts her into the path of mysterious samurai Kage Tatsumi, who is Yumeko’s best hope for survival. But he’s under orders to retrieve the scroll. An uneasy alliance forms, and Yumeko begins the deception of a lifetime, knowing her secrets are more than a matter of life or death―they’re the key to the fate of the world.
MY INITIAL TAKE
Julie Kagawa was one of the first YA writers I read, and I loved the Iron Fey Trilogy (no, I do not acknowledge The Iron Knight because whiny Ash is a disaster). I stopped reading her books after being disappointed by her Blood of Eden series, which were just too grim and frankly depressing for me. However, Shadow of the Fox is a return to the things that made The Iron Fey so great: mischievous beings, well-researched lore, and a strong cast. The return to the more light-hearted style also highlights her growth as an author. Tatsumi manages to be brooding and mysterious, even when in his own narrative, something that, unfortunately, Ash missed the mark on in his standalone novel. Yumeko's playful pranks and naive-but-not-stupid nature bring to mind some of the best qualities of Meghan and Puck.
It was nice to get a chance to explore non-Western myths and Kagawa's explanations of the unfamiliar vocabulary were thorough enough that I didn't feel lost. I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this book, given that I haven't read YA fiction in a few years, but it was light-hearted and fun, an overall easy read, and it manages to avoid both talking down to its younger audience and depressing anyone who reads it. And the cliffhanger definitely makes me want to read the next book!
WHAT I LOVED MOST
As previously mentioned, the return to form for Kagawa hit a nostalgic note for me and reintroduced me to her writing. It hits all the tropes of YA fiction that I haven't seen as much since I've been reading more adult fiction: Yumeko is a plucky heroine, who while mischievous, refuses to take moral shortcuts; Tatsuki is the brooding boy archetype, whose heart melts with prolonged contact with Yumeko; Okame was a loveable scoundrel; and Daisuke was the knight (or samurai, as the case may be) in shining armor. It didn't really make me think too much. The characters aren't one-note or flat, but they are simple and straight-forward. Their motivations are laid bare. There are no schemes or deep secrets that make them overly complicated. It was some much-needed lightness after a long and emotionally draining year.
MY FAVORITE CHARACTER
Daisuke stood out to me as a character with little screentime, but quite a bit of impact. He first appears in the little short stories about Suki the maid that appear in between each section of the book. Suki is the fake-out protagonist, and I honestly thought Daisuke was going to be the male lead in an unlikely romance between a maid and the equivalent of a prince. Even though that ended up not coming to fruition, that he was kind to Suki when the other nobles were cruel stood out, and he remembers her when she disappears. Unlike the other nobles who don't care about Suki at all, Daisuke remembers her name after their brief encounter and notices when he hasn't seen her for months.
He is out of the spotlight for quite a while to the point I had almost given up asking, "what happened to flute-boy from the first chapter?" And then he reappears, in such a dramatic way that I couldn't help but laugh. I don't want to spoil it, as it is a major reveal, but it did so much toward painting a picture of who he is as a character, and it instantly shot him to first place in my books.
LOVING CRITICISM
It's not so much a flaw as a personal preference, but I'm not a fan of gratuitous use of a foreign language for no reason. It just reminds me too much of the bad fanfic I read (and, guilty as charged, wrote) to really like it. The use of honorifics, like -san and -chan, were not problems to me, as those help to establish the setting and are used consistently. Random uses of hai and baka when the characters normally said "yes" or "idiot" just seemed a little out of place.
SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?
I would recommend it for 14-18-year-olds who enjoy fantasy and are interested in different pantheons, I would recommend it. If you like The Iron Fey, it's likely you'll enjoy this series as well. For adults, if you want a fantasy that isn't dour or full of gratuitous sex scenes, this is a safe bet.
You can purchase "Shadow of the Fox" on Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.
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