Sadly, she crafts a story that leaves one rather large loose end. She fabricates a romance between Kazunomiya and her original betrothed, only to have her marry another. This part we all saw coming, but in the epilogue, it's stated that it's unknown if she ever saw the man she actually loved again. In history, she was widowed after only a handful of years of marriage and took vows as a Buddhist nun afterward. If she had some great love from before, why not see what he's up to? Maybe that's a no no in historical Japanese culture, I dunno, but they could have at least met up again. So the crafted love story doesn't really work with her history.
Also, I think a lot of little details could have been expanded upon, too. There's a lot of court intrigue, but you don't get a really clear sense of how the Japanese imperial court works, because Kazunomiya shuns much of it, due to the poor treatment of her mother. Little things, too. She spends a lot of time talking about clothing and how you can only wear certain colors during certain seasons, but she describes colors by saying the names of things from nature instead of using color words. I don't know what color a frickin' plum blossom is. I had to look it up.
Lasky has done some excellent work for Royal Diaries, but I think this one falls in the middle. I did still enjoy it, but mostly because I like the culture it's set during, which manages to balance out the writing failures.
There are only two remaining Royal Dairies to be reviewed: Kaiulani and Anastasia. I'm always sad when I get to this point, because I love the royal series a lot. And now I'm going to be mired in the Civil War for awhile. *groan*
No comments:
Post a Comment