I enjoyed this book; however, I do not think it was quite as strong of an entry in the series as the first book.

Yukiko, the Stormdancer, ends up spending most of the book off on a "side quest" which while having some interesting components, I found largely uninteresting. Her whole purpose for leaving gets and answer, but not really a solution. This "answer" I also found very....bothersome... it wasn't an arc I wanted to see Yukiko take, and it has me worried about her role in the third book.

This book is at least, if not more focused, around Kin and his struggles to find his place within the Kage. While this is interesting, and does lead to some very dramatic moments, it also wasn't as cool as reading about a katana wielding warrior, riding a griffon, but few things really are.

Despite some of its weaknesses, it still was an interesting and entertaining read. I am excited to get around to the third book.

Review can be found on *Milky Way of Books*.

A battle of epic porpotions is coming in this outstanding sequel of Stormdancer! Yukiko and Burru along with the Kage rebels will have to fight the new danger that arises in Kigen city. Moreover Yukiko is losing her control over the Kenning and the gaijin of the north appear slowly in the plot.

The best part of this book was the non-stop action. It felt like I was reading an anime; THAT real it felt. Burru and Yukiko are a great pair, Kin in in the story too, though I had my doubts and fears for him and also new characters appear, who I think will not have good endings.

The battles, the descriptions of the tortured nature, how the gaijin had this russian element in them, everything made the book a unique sequel which in no way will bore you! And Michi is a badass! Though she shouldn't have done THAT towards the end of the book.

This book, and the series deserve to be made into an anime. No TV series or movie, but a good drawn anime with badass music and tearful moments. Well made Mr. Kristoff, well made. ;)

what a roller coaster of a book. Wow!

A heartbreaking, gut-punching ode to Earth, anime, and the near-sighted monkey-children who squabble over both. Red Rising and Princess Mononoke made a baby, and not in a nice way, painting a sweet mural in a nursery to welcome their lovechild - no, it was a brutal clash for dominance egged on by our own bets and bloodlust. (Are you not entertained!) Nobody is as they seem, everybody betrays or fails the ones they love, every echelon of society is treated like human waste, and it seems the planet itself is hell-bent on rejecting the necrotic germ which is humanity (assuming humans don't annihilate each other first).

Praise where praise is due: In the first book I was looking for the Jay Kristoff finesse I would come to know and love in Nevernight, and Kinslayer delivers on the artistry. There was far more natural character growth, and poetic prose, in Kinslayer than there was in Stormdancer. I'm thankful I stuck with the series. (Also, YEY for Yoshi and Jurou, this book needed some queer characters!)
THAT SAID... this STILL feels like a Nevernight first draft to me. You can't tell me Daken isn't Mr. Kindly! XD "Blood is blood"? You can't tell me that wasn't the first draft of "When All is Blood, Blood is All". A library of the dead. A female protagonist fueled for revenge by the public execution of her father (a man who cheated on her pregnant mother). The mirroring of Mia's/Yukiko's growing power and growing rage, personified by the multiplying magical animal friends' voices in her head... Come on.

More praise where praise is due: I liked the theme of nothing-is-as-it-seems: sympathetic guildsmen, butcherly gaijin, spies in abundance... It opened up the world, and made the fighting all the more dire. But I was REEEALLY hoping that Zuko-chooses-Azula moment wasn't going to happen :'(. I'm STILL hoping that Snape is a triple agent. I mean, it's kind of cool to set up the whole Nature vs. Machine fight with two characters who understand and love each other and each thinks they're doing their best for the world... but WHAT IS THE POINT of following Jaime Lannister around for so long, watching him grow humbled and wiser, if he's just going to run back to beeping Cersei in the end?!?!
Spoiler spoiler spoiler I still have faith in Kin. Here's hoping. Spoiler spoiler spoiler.
Only downside from all these dire perspectives... is that MULTIPLE viewpoint women were made helpless - trapped, beaten, raped - and Yukiko herself was practically written out of the story for the majority of the book, stuck on an island dealing with her own moral compass instead of being side-by-side with the people who needed her. Initially, the stakes were harrowing but intriguing, I was rooting for our underdogs to rally and rise from the ashes... But in the last hundred pages, when the hopelessness and helplessness was everywhere and everything, it seeped into /me/. Why was I reading this? Who was I cheering for? How could this book series possibly turn around into anything positive or satisfying? Was this story /only/ sensational violence, or was it going to respect the sympathetic characters it had built and gives these women their due?! And in the last 30 pages the answer was..."Kind of?"
Do better, Endsinger. There is a lot riding on you! You need to resolve a civil war, an international war, an apocalypse, and you need to redeem a bunch of traitors and marginalized women... YIKES! O_O I hope I look back on this and love Kinslayer for the stakes it sets up, instead of regretting it for the characters/world it lets down :'(. But it's impossible to review Kinslayer in complete isolation. Time will tell.

Como siempre pasa con las segundas partes, no hablaré mucho de la trama para no hacer spoilers, pero os diré que continúa un tiempo después de los hechos que cierran la primera parte.

Acompañaremos a Yukiko de nuevo por el Japón feudal steampunk que caracteriza a esta trilogía y seremos cómplices de su lucha con sus enemigos y con ella misma, ya que veremos como su determinación se tambalea en bastantes momentos.

Debo decir que esta segunda parte me ha gustado algo menos que la primera. Me ha gustado, pero me ha parecido algo más pausada y que, casi hasta el final, no tiene mucha acción. Se centra un poco más en la trama política y rebelde y cómo se fragua su lucha.

Se ve un gran cambio y evolución en Yukiko, que lo pasa bastante mal. Y ha habido algunos comportamientos de diversos personajes que me han sorprendido y dejado con ganas de más.

Casi al final del libro se desvelan algunas cosas que me dejaron con la boca abierta y la necesidad de continuar leyendo. Y el giro que da el autor al final con un personaje para cerrar la segunda parte también me dejó boquiabierta.

Otra cosa que me encanta de esta trilogía en general es como se juega con la dualidad de lo tradicional y lo tecnológico. Nos encontramos con un Japón en el que el honor, el folclore y las tradiciones se entrelazan con la modernidad y la tecnología steampunk.

En general, una segunda parte con un ritmo algo más lento que en el primer libro y que se centra un poco más en la trama política y de intriga que en la acción, que aparece casi al final. Pero, aún así, un libro que me ha encantado y que me deja con ganas de leer la tercera parte y ver cómo sigue evolucionando Yukiko.

4.75

Doloroso y crudo como la vida misma en los peores días.