The Sword of Kaigen

There is a lot of hype going into this book as I had not heard a SINGLE bad thing about this book, and I'm happy to say it lived up to it and more. I intentionally didn't look much into what the book was about and I have been on a Sanderson kick for years, so this was the first non Sanderson I've read in a long time so it was a bit jarring, but it shows how well written it is when I fell in comfortably into the book anyways.

The world building is pretty well done, not the best I've ever seen, but the main focus was on the characters and the story they go through. The magic system isn't defined thoroughly like a Sanderson book but it is well done. If you like Avatar you'll like this.

The story is really following a family, and what cultural expectations does on an individual level. For me personally this hit very close to home and I felt like if I was in this world I could see myself going through the same issues. The emotional notes ended up hitting so hard I could feel my heart racing and it wasn't even in the action sequences.

Which brings me to the action scenes. They were written incredibly well, in my opinion some of the best action writing I've ever seen. She didn't shy away from writing details, but didn't go overboard with describing everything to death. The emotional notes hit here too and I was enthralled all the way through. The character work is done very well to where the (main) antagonist was setup as someone you were supposed to hate, and even when I knew they had some history that made them that way I still couldn't help but hate them. But as their history was explored you also grew to sympathize with them. Brilliant story telling.

This book is a MUST read for any fantasy fan and if this is indicative of ML Wang's future works she is now a must read author for me