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lizbethandthelifeinbetween 's review for:
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 1 (light novel)
by Tappei Nagatsuki
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ah this is hard to give 2 stars. My main issue with this book is the writing style. I have no idea if I need to blame my unfamiliarity with Japanese works, the translation, or the author himself. Maybe it is a combination of all three. Either way, the writing style needs serious help and it had me struggling with this book.
There are some great concepts in this book, and despite my reservations I found that there was some good development happening with Subaru as he started to piece together this new world. I'm not quite sure where "time travel" as said on the back of the book comes into play, unless it's a very liberal translation of the Groundhog Day trope which is the point of the plot.
To begin, the author breaks the cardinal rule of show don't tell. Then he Repeats it again, telling us information we received in the sentence before. Then her summarizes the characters actions in terms of this new revelation and before we know it we've spent a paragraph beating the reader over the head with easy to understand information.
Then we bring it up three scenes later just in case they did not understand the first time.
This book is quite short yet it felt padded with excess information that could have been cut for pacing. I found the book incredibly slow to get through. Many scenes dragged on longer than they needed to.
Lastly, despite having graphic fight scenes with blood and gore, the majority of this book felt incredibly juvenile. I'm blaming a lot of that on the dialogue. It felt straight out of a children's cartoon in a way that does not translate well on paper. Characters, but especially the MC Subaru, would have these out of pocket, dramatic outburst all the time, escalating situations for no reason. I see it in cartoons and it works in that medium, but I found it very jarring on page, especially one that it aimed at older teens.
I am curious if the writing gets better in future installments as the epilogue got me more invested in the story. More happened in that one scene than the rest of the book combined.
I was also personally taking a lot of enjoyment from an Ice Magic welder named Elsa who, based in the book being published in 2014 and being a blog before that, likely predates Disney's Elsa.
There are some great concepts in this book, and despite my reservations I found that there was some good development happening with Subaru as he started to piece together this new world. I'm not quite sure where "time travel" as said on the back of the book comes into play, unless it's a very liberal translation of the Groundhog Day trope which is the point of the plot.
To begin, the author breaks the cardinal rule of show don't tell. Then he Repeats it again, telling us information we received in the sentence before. Then her summarizes the characters actions in terms of this new revelation and before we know it we've spent a paragraph beating the reader over the head with easy to understand information.
Then we bring it up three scenes later just in case they did not understand the first time.
This book is quite short yet it felt padded with excess information that could have been cut for pacing. I found the book incredibly slow to get through. Many scenes dragged on longer than they needed to.
Lastly, despite having graphic fight scenes with blood and gore, the majority of this book felt incredibly juvenile. I'm blaming a lot of that on the dialogue. It felt straight out of a children's cartoon in a way that does not translate well on paper. Characters, but especially the MC Subaru, would have these out of pocket, dramatic outburst all the time, escalating situations for no reason. I see it in cartoons and it works in that medium, but I found it very jarring on page, especially one that it aimed at older teens.
I am curious if the writing gets better in future installments as the epilogue got me more invested in the story. More happened in that one scene than the rest of the book combined.
I was also personally taking a lot of enjoyment from an Ice Magic welder named Elsa who, based in the book being published in 2014 and being a blog before that, likely predates Disney's Elsa.