The Sword of Kaigen

What I really want to do is just shout “READ THIS” over and over at you until you finally agree to do it. Unfortunately, that's not really a review, so here goes. This book is one of the best things I've ever read. It's one of those books that I feel like I have emerged from the other side a better person. It is criminal that it is self-published, not because self-published cannot be great but because everyone should be able to walk into any bookstore and see this contribution to literature on the shelves. I honestly think this should be a book they teach in schools for all the deep themes it delves into.

The book follows two protagonists, Misaki and her teenage son Mamoru. Misaki was once a bad-ass teenage crime fighter in a foreign land, but she has returned to her patriarchal, traditional homeland Kaigen to become a housewife and mother in one of the most powerful families. Misaki doesn't want to be a mother and longs for the days where she could fight. Mamoru is just coming into manhood and is dealing with the pressure of living up to his father's name, as well as facing some revelations of how his government may be lying to them and how that fits into his evolving worldview.

That's all the plot synopsis you really need because the plot is not the reason to stay with this book. Although the world is interesting and the combat scenes are incredibly exciting (Wang has a martial arts background and it shows), the characters are just so rich and complex. This is a brutal, harrowing story that will be hard to get through emotionally in some parts. But through pain, comes growth, pleasure, vindication, and understanding. This book examines the human condition and the effects that war has on a society, a village, a person. But it also explores motherhood in such a raw, honest, and gripping way that I have never seen done before. Misaki is such a greatly drawn character, I felt her struggles as if they were my own. Considering she's a 35-year-old mother of four in feudalistic Japan, that is quite a feat.

Besides that, one thing I never see talked about with this book is what Wang is showing with the male characters. The way men are socialized, even in today's society, leaves many unable to show emotion or properly communicate how they're feeling. How is that exacerbated in an honor culture of warriors who are supposed to be the greatest manly men of all time? How does that pressure fold in on itself and devour someone? How does a person survive this culture mentally stable? This book really shows something that most media glosses over: these men are traumatized. And in a book that examines trauma of all kinds, I was blown away by how this was handled.

I could go on for days and not finish all the thoughts I have about this book. I kept pausing to consider the things that were being said or thought and really weighing them.
Some other minor things I enjoyed:
-The unorthodox structure was super well used. The middle of the book is the “end” of most books. This allows the characters to really decompress from the action and rebuild.
-Misaki's sister-in-law Setsuko was great. I understand why we had to follow Misaki, but I think Setsuko is the type of supportive person that I want in my life.
-The characterization of Misaki's husband Takeru is SUPERB. He's a slow burn and not the best person, but very well written. Thoroughly impressed by Wang's writing here.
-All the villains in this book are unnamed, but they are NOT treated as cannon-fodder/redshirts. The fights are visceral with each combatant. This is something SO rare in media, and I get why, but it's also dumb. Almost always in battles, you don't know the name of the person you're fighting, but that person can still be a badass.


This book isn't perfect, however. Wang gave herself worldbuilder's disease, probably because she's been building this world for most of her life. A lot of the details in the beginning are in info-dumps, and a lot of that is unnecessary anyways. She also created a ton of new words for things that is probably not necessary. The biggest offender is new words for units of time- which is a mistake, I think. I read the whole book and I still had no idea what any of those words meant. And the logic doesn't hold up, anyway: If you are writing the word “sword”, you are telling me, the English-speaking reader, that the object is a sword, even if the person in the story may be using a different word. So saying “kukoo” or “Bloopy” instead of “minutes” or “hours” just breaks immersion and doesn't serve any purpose. However, these are small gripes. I believe the book presents a bit of a learning curve because of all this, but once you're in the narrative, it ceases to matter.


I will be recommending this book to people for years. Please read it.