Book Review: Risuko by David Kudler

I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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by David Kudler
Seasons of the Sword #1

Read: November 18, 2024 → December 11, 2024

Pub. Date: June 15, 2016 

Rating: ⭐⭐⚫⚫⚫

Kano Murasaki, called Risuko (Squirrel) is a young, fatherless girl, more comfortable climbing trees than down on the ground. Yet she finds herself enmeshed in a game where the board is the whole nation of Japan, where the pieces are armies, moved by scheming lords, and a single girl couldn't possibly have the power to change the outcome. Or could she?

***

To me, it was so hard to finish this book. It does have an interesting premise, but I could not find myself interested in anything that was happening, one of my biggest problems was that I hadn’t realised that Risuko was a tween, I don’t know if I missed that information at the beginning or it was never mentioned, but I was pretty sure the characters were in their mid-teens at least, but when was mention more than once about how the three main girls haven’t started their period yet, it just kind of clicked.

And that’s my other issue with this book, it’s about a very young japanese girl on her road to becoming a kind of samurai and she’s around a bunch of other women whose periods are mentioned more than once in the book, and all of this is written by a White Male Author. I’m old enough to voice when something doesn’t sit completely well with me, I have no doubt the author did all his research, but it still gave off a feeling that wouldn’t leave me.

Funny tho, this is the only book I’ve read this year, 2024, where periods are mentioned, so it goes to my special list of books, the other one on it also written by a male author. WTH.

Overall, it’s an interesting concept, sadly it didn’t spark a huge interest in me. Some parts of the story felt overdramatic, maybe because I had no connection with the story, I couldn’t understand where all these feelings Risuko was feeling were coming from.