[description from S&S]Is Taro, a fisherman's son, destined for greatness?
In the course of a day, Taro's entire life changes: His father is murdered before his eyes, and Taro is taken by a mysterious ninja on a perilous journey toward safety. Someone wants Taro dead, but who -- and why? With his best friend, Hiro, and their ninja guide Shusaku, Taro gets caught in the crossfire of a bitter conflict between rival lords for control of imperial Japan. As Taro trains to become a ninja himself, he's less and less sure that he wants to be one. But when his real identity is revealed, it becomes impossible for Taro to turn his back on his fate.Review:
While this is definitely not the deepest, most intelligent book ever, it is still amazing because it has NINJAS! Do I care that it dragged in the middle? That I couldn't properly pronounce most of the names or Japanese words? That there were a few cliches? NO. Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NINJAS!
Can you tell that I like ninjas? Because I do. They are amazing. (They are way better than pirates, just saying.) Obviously I view this book in a bit of a ~biased~ way because of my ninja love, but still, it was good. In the beginning and end especially, there was tons of fighting and action. The fight scenes were the best parts, as they were described well and after a while I was totally enamored by them. So enamored that in my head, the bloodthirsty part of me was coming out and going "BLOOD! FIGHT! POW!" I just wish there were more fights, or even a bit more action, because in the middle the group was just traveling and meeting people and it became a bit dull. There were chapters from the enemy emperor's point of view that added to the mystery of why Taro was being singled out for hunting; the mystery kept me interested, but the bloodthirsty side of me still wanted more ninja fights.
Despite all the information given about how the whole vampire ninja thing works and how you become and ninja and such, I always wanted more information. It seems like there can be so much more explored, especially with the vampire side of things, so I'm hoping the sequel will cover more ground. I'm also hoping the sequel includes more of the fantastic twists this book had, because there were always people changing their allegiances and doing crazy things. I also hope that, among all the twists, the characters can still be developed a bit more because this book was so plot-driven that sometimes it felt like the characters were forgotten.
Blood Ninja is definitely more of a fun book, but man it is fun, with plenty of awesome ninja action.
Book details: Simon and Schuster/Hardcover/$16.99
3 comments: