Book Bites: Japanese Gothic

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Japanese Gothic is moody and atmospheric but flat. It's more style than substance. Our two main characters feel wooden. Lee, who flees to Japan after murdering his college roommate, spends much of the action self-medicating, creating narration that feels detached. 19th Century Samurai Sen exists only to please her domineering father and lacks agency. Baker sets a wonderful moody scene, built a ghost house far from civilization, but the blood inside feels token. The heart of the book sparks with Sen's and Lee's relationship, but, sadly, they only spend the last third of the book actually interacting. There's simply too much prologue here. There are themes of myth and time travel and love and loss, and Baker does manage to spin these threads into a clever denouement, but a clever ending only shines a light on Japanese Gothic's otherwise plodding narrative.

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