Reviews and Comments

In terms of message, I find the ending entirely disappointing. Throughout the last couple volumes, we learn that the 'voice' in the stone comes from... technology and was developed by the great-great-grandfather of the protagonist, with ghosts (or something ghost-like) of machines/robots being all around and able to help. But then it becomes the responsibility of Emily (and her family but more so Emily) to ensure that these shadows do not impact other worlds, like Alledia (where she has spent the past nine volumes). I don't like that it becomes an individualist lesson of how to stop shadows from taking over different worlds.

As a whole, the series makes me frustrated with the ways in which many of the characters' relationships feel... disconnected and forced. Other than a couple character combinations (Aly/Navin and Navin/Emily), everything just feels... like they forgot to ensure that their relationship was developed over the course of the story. Most relationships are already pre-existing (including Navin/Emily, but also Enzo/Rico and all of the Charnon robots), which makes it feel superficial when they're forced into interact with someone else or be worried about them.

As for the ending: I hate the Beauty and the Beast aspect. There was no foreshadowing that the curse the humans-turned-to-animals (like Leon, Rico, and Enzo—a fox and two cats, respectively) was tied to the shadows that have been trying to take over the universe. When Emily beats the shadows (through the power of being a protagonist—it is explained, but that's how it feels), everyone who you'd been accustomed to who'd been an animal... is suddenly human. For reasons.

Everything "bad" in the world (I don't know that I'd count this as bad, but whatever) is attributed to the same one cause. That's weird because that's... not how the world works, and I think it's disappointing that this is the direction the story took.

Trellis's whole arc gets... smashed into nonsense. He's the elf prince who doesn't want to be prince, he gives up the crown to another (Gabilan) in order to maintain peace, and then the school of stonekeepers has one person fail (because the voice is talking to them, trying to get them to give in), and Trellis steps in to tell them all to just... not. "We won't use these powers." This part isn't bad, actually. It's that, after Trellis tells them to stop and convinces them to leave their giant forms, the kids all start referring to him as 'your majesty' and then his ending is that he is the king of Cielis... so he becomes king again! Hoorah! ... Which doesn't feel earned, and it also doesn't feel like the kind of arc his story was building towards.

It's just a lot of stuff all at once. I think if it was drawn out to build the relationships and context for what happens, it'd be better... As it is? Frustrating.

While I mostly love the ways that these characters are presented (though I do wish there were more consistently existing parents of children in the story, since some of the parents seem to get dropped in the middle), there are narrative choices that leave me a bit confused because there was nothing really choreographing those decisions earlier.

A major plot point with Navin and Aly seems to just... come out of nowhere, and I'm not entirely sure why it's even part of what has been happening. Nothing really prepares the reader for Navin and Aly (along with other characters) to go to a space station and then to another planet. For every other book, we've remained on Alledia; suddenly, we're introduced to Typhon and how it and Alledia are connected... except we've never really heard of Typhon to begin with. And there was nothing indicating a space program, either.

I don't inherently dislike that as a turn, but I think it needed sufficient signposting in earlier books so that it doesn't feel like something totally random and like Kibuishi couldn't figure out how to continue the story any other way than tossing in a random new narrative point. As it stands, though, I think it just conveys lazy writing and a failure to engage with the world on Alledia that has already been built and developed throughout the course of the story.

Another thing that I'm not a huge fan of is that conflict isn't... actually conflict? Trellis enters Valcor (land of the elves) to reclaim the throne, but then he decides that the "false king" (his friend and ally Gabilan) should remain as the king and that he will become the adviser. I think Trellis's decision makes sense, but the fact that Gabilan barely resists (even when he does) any of the advice Trellis gives him on how to protect the kingdom... is strange. Gabilan was shown as being very headstrong and requiring evidence or countermeasures to persuade... And here he's just like "Well, I guess you're right."

Everything feels too easy sometimes. I don't think we need an all out war, but it'd be nice to have some degree of tension and actual disagreement. There's a lot of "work together in peace" type talks that just feel so... frustrating because that's not how interactions between people occur. Sure, we can sometimes be like "Oh, yeah, actually you're right," but it's usually because... it's very obvious to ourselves that we're wrong. It's weird to have a value or a principle and then just kind of go "Ah, well, shucks. Guess I just gotta dump it for something else because you were nice to me!"

I like the potential of the story, but it often feels very liberal in the most infuriating ways.

One thing I know adults reading this often complain about are how the kids are shown as stronger than everyone, and I actually don't mind that. Only Emily is really shown as being stronger than others (as a Stonekeeper). She embraced the powers earlier, then she became more cautious of them, then she gave in to them, and then she learned to defy and fight against Ikol (the voice in the stone that can control Stonekeepers). That is literally the path of her whole story arc and gets her to the character she is at the end of the series.

The adults telling Navin that he is a natural leader is very funny because even he resists that and pushes back, and I think that's a good thing because he recognises that he's not but that he is capable of being so. He still sees the possibilities for growth (though, there is a teacher who he has to convince to let him do something in an earlier book because that teacher thought Navin was incapable). If anything, this could be a good commentary on the way that adults constantly push their problems on children if it was reworked somewhat, especially since this has been a perpetual thing that has been done ("the youth are okay" or "the youth will fix it" or "it'll get better when the young take over" are all things that have been said by generations older than them who do nothing at all to solve the problems they created or enabled).

So I like the kids and their portrayals. They can be useful conversation starters, especially if you're an adult reading it with a kid.

I want to start out with this: I don't know that this book is entirely for me. That's fine. It was still an experience to get through, and I only really started realising what the structure of the book was doing when I explained my discomfort with the first two stories to a friend and was starting on describing the beginning of the first.

To my friend, I had said: "All of these people are abusive assholes. I don't know if the sister is going to be, since I'm not done. But the husband and the brother-in-law were atrocious and disgusting." As soon as I said that, it finally clicked what was being done and the kind of message that Han Kang had wanted to transmit. And it's because the key figure, the person whose interiority we often don't have and who we're being pushed to look at as strange... is Yeong-hye. She's central to every story, but we're only allowed to follow the people harming her.

I do want to say, however, that the first story used shock value that hadn't been choreographed or foreshadowed multiple times. This includes the utilisation of suicide (which I thought this was done well despite the lack of foreshadowing, especially for the situation it is in) and two instances of animal torture and abuse (the first of which felt like it came entirely out of nowhere and was deeply frustrating, and the second was much more mild than the former but still could be upsetting). The second story involved a lot of sexual behaviours that were entirely questionable, which mostly felt discomforting because we know what the character we're following is thinking and the kind of obsessive attitude he has taken towards to object of his sexual desires. It's uncomfortable because we know what kind of tricks he's using to get what he wants and why he's treating people the way he is, which really isn't positive.

The third story, though, is her sister. Her sister isn't shown to be a good person. She's going through all the 'what if' moments and wondering where she screwed up and if she could've done better for Yeong-hye. She realises that she caused some of Yeong-hye's problems through the control she's had over her, by wanting to lock her away... and recognises that she's in the wrong. She's not presented as good but as changing. (I also like that she realises the kind of control that women are under by their husbands and the societal pressure of having children. It's woven in the story well.)

... The second story in this book is really making me want to DNF. Like, I'm really pushing through it, but it's pissing me off. A lot. And I kind of think that's the point, but idk. It's making me so uncomfortable.

I'm tired of reading about this man having sexual desires for his sister-in-law; I don't like how it's dressed under a guise of him "doing his work" (he's an artist). It's actually bothering me. I don't even like having to have read about him basically abusing his wife in one instance and him masturbating in another. I just... I think it's supposed to make me feel gross, but idk. I am not enjoying it.