Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind - Misa Sugiura - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Misa Sugiura

SERIES: Momo Arashima, #1

GENRE: Middle-Grade Fantasy.

RATING: 2.5 Stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy with elements and entities from Japanese lore. Should have worked, but gives mixed results because of attempting too much. First of a planned series.

Story Synopsis:

Momo, a twelve year old with a hyperactive imagination and no friends, wishes for an ordinary life. But because of her dreaminess in school and her responsibility of taking care of her ill widowed mother, Momo finds herself struggling to go through her routine life. Until suddenly, routine life itself seems to turn crazy, what with death hags and a talking fox making an appearance. This leads to a reveal of a huge secret about Momo’s mother, whose health is turning worse. To save her, Momo finds herself on a journey across the earth to close a secret passageway, stop evil spirits, and save her mother. Will she be able to do it with only Niko the fox and Danny her ex-best-friend-now-selfish-snob for company?

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Momo.

Middle-grade fiction is among my favourite genres, even more than YA, for the range and depth it offers. I had fully expected to love this book, but it ended up one of my rare mixed-bag MG reads.

The portrayal of the central characters is interesting. Momo is a typical teen, angry with the entire world with a constant "No one gets me" refrain. Too whiny for my liking, but children might *get* her character more. Her insecurities make her adventures daunting, but she grows courageous as the pages go by. This makes for a good coming-of-age narrative. Danny too was an unusual choice. The typical sidekick on adventurous missions is an encouraging best friend, so to see someone Momo is clearly not comfortable with but is forced to put up with was a different experience. Danny isn’t exactly a good role model for kids, but I suppose having perfect characters every time is also boring. Danny is more realistic in that sense. Niko the shapeshifting fox makes for a fun third wheel. The rest of the characters don’t get enough of a page space for us to know them well enough. Momo’s mother didn’t get the deserved character arc – it didn’t help to see the only parent in the story being so shakily portrayed despite having tremendous potential.

There are some relevant themes explored through the story. Bullying, family issues, standing up for oneself, not losing sense of your identity in a quest to fit in,… At the same time, the book also explores the impact of race on self-confidence, social standing and acceptance by peer groups. I felt that some part of this didn’t come out well, especially with Danny, who is shown as a Japanese-origin child adopted by white parents.

There are plenty of characters and artefacts from Japanese folklore. While I did appreciate the variety, the book seems to go overboard on this factor. Be it yuki, tengu, kitsune, kappa, kami, dragons, heikegani crabs,… the list is endless. There’s no question that the author has done her research well (and as an #OwnVoices work, it is quite authentic too, though modernised). However, it felt as if she had a checklist of Japanese lore elements, and she went ticking off the items until every single one had made an appearance in the story. This overabundance means that most of the lore elements find a nominal mention in the story without being sketched out well. This also leads to the book feeling highly rushed. The pacing is far too quick for any scene to stand out. Barely is one scene over when the next is ready with a fresh set of characters. A detailed focus on fewer fantastical beings/objects would have worked better for me.

This is somewhat lengthy for a middle-grade book at nearly 400 pages, but the pace saves the day. There’s an extensive glossary at the end for the lore terms and characters.

As this is the first of a series, the ending completes the current thread without any major cliff-hanger, and gives enough of a clue for us to know where the story will proceed next.

All in all, a decent read but not a memorable one for me. The story could have been great but the writing choices brought it down. Of course, I am not the target reader for this title. Children who like adventure stories and reading about fantastical creatures from another culture might still enjoy this.

My thanks to Random House Children's and NetGalley for the DRC of “Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.