sunsetxcocktail

My brain is suffering from an overload of holy crap this book was awesome right now.
I very nearly gave up on this book quite early on. The first hundred pages or so were extremely boring. Almost nothing was happening. It was pretty much introducing characters and setting the scene. Granted though, the Steam Punk and dysptopian themes wound with Japanese fantasy were interesting...but not attention grabbing. The world described was pretty grim and bleak. The Shogun was an asshole right from the start. The female lead was likeable enough. The writing was detailed, the picture clear, the style of the prose a little too flowery and purple prosey.
 
And the plot was so so slow. And I came very close to DNFing several times. But once I got past the first 100 pages, the plot picked up rapidly and became brilliant. The characters leapt off the page. The story telling grabbed my attention and pretty much did not let go. The story became utterly fascinating. I became completely engrossed and loved Yukiko and her thunder tiger. There were quite a few scenes in the beginning with the griffin that were quite painful and hard to read. As the plot advanced the relationship between Yukiko and the thunder tiger was just amazing. There were more than a few points where the story was so good the writing and the connection between the two brought a tear to my eye. And it wasn't even for sad scenes.
 
The intricacy of the story telling and the plot developed even more, some characters turned out to be surprising. The sheer imagination in the novel is unbelievable. I don't care in the slightest how accurate the Japanese terminology is, its a fantasy, I look for good characters, believable world building and good story telling, all of which this novel had in abundance. (Once I got past the first 100 pages).
 
Completely unpredictable as well. More than a few times in the plot, you think you know where its going, then it twists and turns and completely surprises you. Fantastic book. Bring on the next!
 
This book covers several squares for my Summer Bingo reading challenge. I'm crossing off the square - Features an Animal Companion.