Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Series Review: The Paper Gods Series by Amanda Sun

Yet another series review! I actually read this series in November, reviewed the first two, but never made it to reviewing the third one. Well, better late than never is my opinion!

The series I'm reviewing today is Amanda Sun's Paper Gods series! 




If I'm going to be honest, the real reason why I picked this series up to read last November was because I had just moved to a new city, and was going through a bit of a hard time finding my footing there (here). Katie kind of was in the same boat as me in this first book, so I figured I'd be able to get some comfort from her alienating experiences. Anyways, onto the reviews!




Ink: Ah, the Japanese culture. I really do love it, and it was nice to experience it from Katie's perspective. The idea of drawings coming to live definitely was a good one, though it was a little confusing to wrap my head around at first. There were some moments in the book that I think were straight anime cliches, which, in rereading this book, were a lot more glaringly noticeable. Katie was an interesting protagonist, though I found her a bit shallow at times. Tomohiro was super awesome though! And Jun. I really liked Jun in this book!





Rain: I really liked the development of the dangerous powers of ink in this one. We also got to better understand Katie's role in all thisPoor, poor Tomohiro. He's literally a sitting duck in this one. If it weren't for Katie pulling him through, I think he probably would just kneeled over and given up. Wait. Did EVERYONE become a bad guy? 








Storm: Am I the only one who is totally loving Sato? He's awesome. But cutting to the point: as much as I enjoyed all the culture and history in this book, the plot for me felt a bit predictable and the ending a bit flat and cliché. There were a few loose ends from the last book that were wrapped up a bit abruptly in my opinion, along with a few other things that were introduced but not quite fleshed out before the book ended. Hmm. 










So, in conclusion: the culture is absolutely awesome and is predominant throughout the entire series. Katie was a mediocre protagonist, as was Tomo. The most interesting characters to me probably were Jun and Sato, and I would have liked to see more of them. Plot was okay, but nothing particularly special apart from the initial book. Hence overall series rating: 3 stars!






2 comments:

  1. I've seen this one around, quite a bit--but I haven't picked it up. It sounds like it might be worth reading. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I definitely enjoyed reading it for the cultural diversity and would recommend it to get away from the traditional Western context of books :)

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