Unfortunately I DNF’d. I definitely will be giving this a second chance if I see it in stores, but I just couldn’t get into it.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Rachael Krotec’s Woven Song is a vibrant, action-packed fantasy inspired by Japanese and Asian mythology, blending captivating world-building with an enchanting story of found family, self-discovery, and mythical battles. While the stunning cover might grab your attention first, the layered narrative will keep you hooked.

Plot Overview
The story follows Yuki, an exiled woman with a shrouded past, and Ryu, a dragon god with a crucial mission. Together, they face ancient forces and battle against Izanami, the ruler of the underworld, threatening the mortal realm. As Yuki unravels the secrets of her identity and the threads of her destiny, the book explores themes of transformation, loyalty, and rewriting one’s narrative in the face of adversity.

Strengths
Mythological Depth: The infusion of Japanese mythology is immersive and accessible, with enough detail to intrigue newcomers and satisfy seasoned enthusiasts.
Themes of Self-Realization: The story shines in its portrayal of rewriting your destiny and finding strength in vulnerability. Watching Yuki and her companions embrace their identities is a resonant message.
Found Family: The camaraderie and growing bonds between characters add warmth and emotional depth, culminating in heartfelt moments.
Fast-Paced Plot: With a balance of action, introspection, and romance, the narrative rarely drags, and the short chapters make it a binge-worthy read.
Areas for Improvement
Character Depth: While the characters are likable and dynamic, they could benefit from deeper emotional layers. Yuki’s journey is compelling but might have hit harder with more introspection and exploration of her past.
Cultural Discrepancies: Some readers may notice inconsistencies in the cultural elements and honorifics, which slightly detract from the authenticity of the Japanese-inspired setting.
Romance Development: The slow-burn romance adds a sweet touch, but it could have been given more prominence earlier in the story to deepen its impact.
Highlights
The dynamic fight scenes and mythological twists kept the stakes high.
The prose, especially the opening lines, is gripping:
“It was a beautiful day to die.”

Ryu’s stoic charm and Yuki’s resilience make for a compelling duo.
Final Thoughts
Woven Song is an engaging, fast-paced introduction to Asian-inspired fantasy, perfect for fans of mythology, dragons, and stories of personal growth. Despite minor flaws in character development and cultural accuracy, it’s an enjoyable adventure with themes of empowerment and self-discovery at its core. Highly recommended for YA readers and anyone seeking a unique mythological tale.

Tropes: Found family, fallen gods, slow-burn romance, will-they-won’t-they, chronic illness rep, dragons 🐉.

Spice Level: Low (appropriate for younger readers).

If you’re a fan of lush mythology, action-packed adventures, and heartfelt character growth, Woven Song is worth your time. Can’t wait to see where Krotec takes this series next!

Beautiful dragon cover and Japanese mythology? Sign me up! Thank you, NetGalley, and Nib and Feather LLC, for an advanced copy of Woven Song by Rachael Krotec

Honestly, this cover is absolutely beautiful. I can not stop staring at it.

This was a very interesting read and the author describes everything in a way that you will be able to appreciate the book even ij you're not familiar with Japanese mythology.

⭐️: 2
DNF. I tried to get into it, but it didn’t hold my interest Maybe I’ll give it another chance at a later time.

Woven Song by Rachael Krotec instantly drew me in with its gorgeous cover and intriguing premise of Asian mythology and epic betrayal. Sadly, the story didn’t quite hold my attention. While the world-building was impressive, the pacing felt uneven, and I ultimately stopped about halfway through.

Though it wasn’t the right fit for me, I can see this appealing to readers who love intricate myths and tales of gods and mortals. Sometimes a book just doesn’t click—and that’s okay!

I have conflicting thoughts about Woven Song. At its best, it’s endearing and cozy, and at its worst, it’s confusing and inconsistent. I also think that I’m coming to realize that I dislike super slow pacing most of the time - it makes me feel so disconnected from the characters and the story. I feel like I’m reading a play-by-play of daily activities and it’s hard for me to get into it. Of course that’s a me problem and not a book problem, so take that as you will.

I’ll start with the aspects of this that I liked. The story outline is generally pretty strong. There’s background on the fantasy elements, some great descriptions of the settings (house, city, etc.), and nice framing to round the story out. I like how the author has set up a mentor/mentee situation with the characters to introduce their relationship. I think that’s where the pros end with me, unfortunately.

For the parts that I wasn’t a fan of, I’ll start with the world-building. The world is quite shallow, and it feels as though the book only scratches the surface of what’s possible here. I won’t spoil, but the character development starts out strong, as does the background, but after that, it all goes flat. There are attempts at deeper themes, but for an adult reader it just doesn’t seem to be enough.

Overall, I think this book is definitely for a younger crowd, as other reviews have suggested. That’s usually not an issue for me, but I think it leans too heavily into its assumptions. It’s a fun read if you’re along for an adventure where the twists and overarching plot goals are central to the book.

I was immediately drawn in by the beautiful cover and knew I needed to read this. Unfortunately the story didn’t quite live up to what I was hoping for. The story itself was not bad, it just wasn’t able to grab my attention in the way I hoped. I stopped and started a few times before ultimately deciding to stop about halfway in.

Personally, I thought this read was ok. I am a fan of Japanese mythology so I found myself enjoying that aspect of it however if you are heavy on culture and want it to be super authentic then this is not for you. While you can tell the backbone is there, there are a lot of discrepancies when it comes to accuracy within the Japanese culture. I did find the pacing of the book to be a bit slow at times and it did take me a while to get through as well. If you like YA and Asian Mythology for the fun of it and are ok with a more western and lose telling, you may enjoy this read, however, I do think it needs a little bit more work on the story to tighten up just to make it flow a little better.

Thanks, Netgalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.
Asian mythology is its own amazing mystery so I truly enjoyed the novel! We have aspects of found family and pretty good fight scenes. The romance part wasn't my cup of tea, but the characters were intriguing. As a whole very nice read.

Thank you to the publishers and netgallet for letting me review this.

Unfortunately I could not get into this book. After the first few chapters it was hard to focus and read.

Sadly my first DNF of the year

This was a book that I originally received from Netgalley, and wasn't able to get to on time so when I saw it on Indigo I decided to buy it and read it after release. I can't lie though, it was difficult to read and the story menderes for the majority of the book. For the majority of the book I attempted to read it but after every couple of pages I caught myself skimming the pages and would have to put this back down. For a roughly 350 page book, it took me over 2 months to finish it, which is why I gave it one star. I'm hoping the author writes again, but with a very strong editor backing her that can help guide the direction of the story.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. Everything in this review is my own opinion and has in no way been influenced by the writer, publisher, or Netgalley.

Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

It seems that I am among many others who love the beautiful cover but ultimately was left wanting much more from the story within. This suffered from classic blunders such as telling and not showing, character development happening off page which suffers the connection a reader has to the mcs, and poor plot progression.

With more editing and more revisions this could have been something special, but as it is, it is mostly forgettable.

Woven Song has a beautiful cover, an intriguing title, and a promising blurb. Unfortunately, I did not feel that this book lived up to any of these expectations.

Woven Song is the story of Yuki, a young woman who is freed from a four-year banishment to the north due to her alleged involvement in the disappearance of her childhood friend, Hina. She is invited back in order to foster and train a wayward teen in her family dojo, and along the way begins to uncover a vast web of secrets about her family, identity, and the kami.
The positives: There are some areas where the prose is interesting. The author uses many interesting metaphors and descriptors that I found added to the fantastical world of this book. Like I said above, the cover of this book is quite pretty. While I didn’t always feel that relationships between characters were built well, where the book is at the peak of its found family plots, I enjoyed the clear warmth and support between the characters nice to read above.
The negatives: Unfortunately, this section is going to be rather long compared to the positives.
- This book talks down to its readers: This book is YA, but in the worst way. I read plenty of books aimed at young adults, and most don’t feel that they need to stop and define words for the reader. Flashback is given by basically directly telling the reader, “and then Yuki had a flashback to a long-forgotten memory”. Characters often stop to explain their entire motivations to each other. Characters have incredible deep conversations about their feelings at the most random times just to lay out their backstories. It’s all told and never shown.
- All the plot happens off the page: This problem was multifaceted. The vast majority of the interesting actions scenes are off page—as in, we see a character about to face down some great and terrifying enemy, and in the next paragraph, the character has either won or lost the fight. In the rare cases where the action does happen on the page, huge important plot moments take maybe 1-2 kindle pages worth of book to resolve (and when I say resolve, I mean resolve, as in the action happens and the characters have reflected on what the action all meant and what to do next). The same goes for many of the interesting building of relationships: aside from some aspects of the friendship between Daisuke and Yuki, all the interesting interpersonal relationships are not really developed, just shown. Even Daisuke and Yuki get far less developed than I would like for the fact that they are a focal point of the story.
- The plot is choppy and confusing: So often, I had to stop and re-read the same passage a few times to figure out what was happening. Characters sometimes seem to warp locations, huge betrayal comes literally out of nowhere that it’s impossible to follow, and characters change their worldview in the blink of an eye. In so many conversations, Character A reveals some huge piece of information to another that could totally change Character B’s view of the world; for example, the true identity of a friend, or the very existence of magic in the world. I would have loved to see the interesting tension as Character B struggles to rationalize what they’ve learned, weigh the relationship with Character A, and decide how to process this new information. Nope, Character B always simply accepts this new mind-boggling information after 1-2 lines of dialogue about how they laugh at being told such a ridiculous thing.
- Representation: The representation of Japanese cultural elements has been called into question by other reviewers; and I strongly recommend interested readers seek out Japanese reviewers for deeper insights into how this book depicts these elements. I also found the representation of the two disabled characters lacking, as one’s disability seems to be entirely forgotten except for the scenes that she is being attacked by other children for being disabled, and the other’s disability is similarly forgotten except as justification to be abruptly cruel and spiteful. The latter character’s reasons for these emotions could have been interesting if explored in a much more nuanced book than this one. Instead, this character ended up being a disabled character who also used their disability to justify being a huge jerk.

Thank you to Victory Editing Netgalley Co-op, Netgalley and author Rachel Krotec for providing me an arc in exchange of an honest review!

I really the love the book cover. It's so pretty!!!
I love the Japanese mythology. I loved the characters. What really capture me is the plot. It was intriguing and unique. Definitely what kept me going as I progress through the book.

I liked reading this book overall. I think the writing style was enjoyable and the author did a really good job of describing things which helped me visualize everything very clearly. The overall plot was interesting and kept me wanting to read and know more. I also liked a lot of the characters, especially the boy she is tasked with training/taking care of. And the grandma was also really sweet. This book definitely hits the found family trope that I like a lot so if you like that as well, I would give it a shot. Overall I would give this a 3.5/5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley, Rachael Krotec, and the publisher for access to this title in exchange for my honest opinions and review!

I was so intrigued by the premise of this story but it fell flat because of a lack of characterization and the strange way that the writing is more “telling” than “showing” and lacks style. It starts with what could have been 2 prologues about Yuki, first coming down to the Earth, then her being adopted a second time. The jump between these two scenes is jarring, we are not given the time that passes from the end of the first until the second, and the people that Yuki presumably formed a relationship with between the two scenes are barely presented to the reader and quickly forgotten. We are given no explanation as to how an orphan girl from the wild north is accepted as the the heir to a high ranking samurai and became the princess’s best friend but we have to accept that as a fact of the story in the first few chapters. I got 20% of the way through Woven Song before I DNFed it because the stilted, unnatural dialogue and slightly repetitive inner monologues made it hard to read. In the sections I read, Yuki’s secret identity as a moon goddess was not mentioned and didn’t affect the story at all which was disappointing.

I did not finish this book. Life got in the way as it unfortunately sometimes does, so take what I say with a grain of salt because of that.

- I feel like the author is trying too hard with the prose and it just feels boring and redundant to read, so I’m on page 20 and I already find myself skimming just because of all the unnecessarily long paragraphs detailing imagery and unimportant details
- Its not that i find the book itself boring (so far anyway), I’m actually already pretty invested in the main character & whats going on—the author is good at story structure and plotting, they just gotta not go so hard on the prose
- I would say the beginning os confusing but I skimmed like half of it so I dont blame the author for me being confused, just my impatience; Im just saying that that fact did impact how I took in the story from then-on, which was confuzled.
- There’s a lot of telling—not in the ‘show dont tell’ way, but in the ‘here’s this character’s backstory’ way, and its all thrown at you in a big chunk. It doesnt feel like the narrator is speaking to the audience, it feels more like the author is speaking to the page, and its unfortunately dull to read. Its being told not line outs or first time hearing it, but like

Like many others, I was super excited to read this based on the description of "based on Asian mythology" and the beautify cover, but that's where my excitement ended. The book starts with a note on Japanese honorifics and how the author researched them heavily and debated on whether to include them or not, so I expected a variety of honorifics (-san, -kun, -chan, -sama, etc.) and for them to be used correctly. However immediately we are introduced to "Mr. Usagi-san," which defeats the purpose of honorifics if "Mr." is included as well - it should be one or the other, not both. The rest of the book continues with these discrepancies, and the writing style lends it no favors. The story jumps around, lots of telling, not showing anything for the reader to be able to interpret themselves, which feels very jarring, and I found myself getting lost because there are moments where it feels as though a transition/explanation was cut out and not replaced, and I had no idea what was happening. I finished the book just to see if it improved, but was disappointed the whole way through, because the story idea had so much potential.

I really enjoyed this book! The story was very entertaining and well written. I would highly recommend reading this book!