Seven Deadly Shadows by Courtney Alameda & Valynne E. Maetani | ARC Review

Seven Deadly Shadows
by Courtney Alameda, Valynne E. Maetani
Published on January 28, 2020 by HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780062570819
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Seventeen-year-old Kira Fujikawa has never had it easy. She’s bullied by the popular girls in school. Her family ignores her. And she’s also plagued with a secret: She can see yokai, the ghosts and demons that haunt the streets of Japan. But things accelerate from bad to worse when she learns that Shuten-doji, the demon king, will rise at the next blood moon to hunt down an ancient relic and bring the world to a catastrophic end.

Not exactly skilled at fighting anything, much less the dead, Kira enlists the aid of seven powerful death gods to help her slay Shuten-doji. They include Shiro, a kitsune with boy-band looks who is more flirtatious than helpful, and O-bei, a regal demon courtesan with covert reasons of her own for getting involved.

As the confrontation with Shuten-doji draws nearer by the day, the fate of Japan hangs in the balance. Can Kira save humankind? Or will the demon king succeed in bringing eternal darkness upon the world?

Review

Seven Deadly Shadows is an anime in book form, and I mean that in the best of ways.

This book follows Kira, a young priestess working at her family’s shrine. She’s throne into a centuries-old conflict involving a demon king, a few kitsune, and shinigami (death gods), among other beings from Japanese legend. And full disclaimer, I can’t speak to the accuracy of how Japanese culture is portrayed in Seven Deadly Shadows. There’s an author note at the end that details some of the research that went into this book but that doesn’t guarantee it is fully accurate. My only familiarity with some of the aspects of this book come from years of watching anime.

Which is honestly why I think the story resonated with me so much at the beginning. One of my absolute favorite shows growing up was InuYasha which also has a young priestess who battles demons and an otherworldly love interest. Seven Deadly Shadows gives off strong Chosen One vibes as Kira and her growing band of allies work to defeat the demon king which means lots of skirmishes, lots of action and energy, plenty of opportunities to explore the world Alameda and Maetani created.

Unfortunately despite all the pieces existing in these nearly 400 pages, it wasn’t working for me and it came down to two things: the writing style and the main characters.

From the very beginning, I was constantly pulled out of the story because all the words that would likely be unfamiliar to readers not already acquainted with Japanese culture were defined in text. And it was a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I appreciated knowing what the words and phrases meant, but on the other hand, the way it’s presented took me right out of the story and world. I think I just wanted the authors to trust in the reader to pick up on context clues a bit more for certain things? It would have made for a more immersive experience, I believe.

Because all the good stuff is there. The interesting cast of characters (with a couple exceptions that I’ll get to in a moment), the intricacies of a world both narrow and vast in scope, the integration of the fantastical in modern day. All screamed YOU WILL LOVE ME and I wanted to so much but I just wasn’t clicking with the writing style and it definitely wasn’t working in the book’s favor.

The style is also why I never felt any real tension or emotion in the scenes. Anytime the characters got into trouble, I wasn’t worried for them because the danger didn’t come off as that bad, and when it came to some specific deaths, they made no impact because there was nothing building those characters up to make it really hit home with the reader.

Now not that it really matters but if this book was an anime (or ever becomes one) I would be ALL over that. I think it’s well suited for a more visual medium.

Anyway, my other issue was with the protagonist, Kira, and partially with her love interest Shiro. Kira’s internal monologues drove me up a wall! So much telling rather than showing in the story. I didn’t dislike her or anything but I was definitely annoyed at times. But there wasn’t really much to dislike as she and Shiro felt pretty generic as far as characters go.

Each of the supporting characters had something about them that made them… well, them. Something distinctive that made them stand out from the rest. But Kira didn’t really come off the page like that, nor did Shiro whose role seemed to be her comforting pillow or blanket, rather than a character in his own right. They became names on the page and little else.

I’m not sure I would consider this a bad book because I liked a number of its components, but it wasn’t working for me, personally, with the writing style and characters. However, I’d be curious to see what these authors do next…