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A review by sistermagpie
The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
What a great way to start the year. (Really, I would have ended 2020 with this book if the library website hadn't gone down for days!)
I love fantasy where the stakes are contained and truly understandable, and this book does that in spades. We start with a young girl thrown out into the world on her own, a girl who loves animals. She loves observing animals the same way Jane Goodall did from a young age, and she makes them fascinating for the reader too. She eventually gets a place at a sanctuary caring for injured Royal Beasts, mythical creatures that are the natural predators of the country's other mythical beasts, the Toda. When Elin gets the chance to care for an injured cub, her unique perspective opens new doors between man and beast.
But as she's been warned, these are political animals. They've been dragged into--or are a part of--the very creation story of the country where she lives, so Elin's successes do not go unnoticed. She, too, is dragged into political machinations she doesn't at first understand.
So it's part political thriller and part animal story, and since Leelan, Elin's cub, is a very wild, dangerous animal it's fraught with danger and misunderstanding. And I cried at the end.
I love fantasy where the stakes are contained and truly understandable, and this book does that in spades. We start with a young girl thrown out into the world on her own, a girl who loves animals. She loves observing animals the same way Jane Goodall did from a young age, and she makes them fascinating for the reader too. She eventually gets a place at a sanctuary caring for injured Royal Beasts, mythical creatures that are the natural predators of the country's other mythical beasts, the Toda. When Elin gets the chance to care for an injured cub, her unique perspective opens new doors between man and beast.
But as she's been warned, these are political animals. They've been dragged into--or are a part of--the very creation story of the country where she lives, so Elin's successes do not go unnoticed. She, too, is dragged into political machinations she doesn't at first understand.
So it's part political thriller and part animal story, and since Leelan, Elin's cub, is a very wild, dangerous animal it's fraught with danger and misunderstanding. And I cried at the end.