Book Review: The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker
Length: 393 Pages
Genres: YA Fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Trigger Warnings in this book for Violence, Gore, Death and Body Horror

"I was nothing but Death that bled from every organ and anger so vicious that it could tear the sky to shreds, drain the oceans dry, and crack the universe in two."

Another book recommended by my sister, who actually got an early copy of this and ended up really liking it! It was one of my options for my November Book of the Month so I jumped at the opportunity to snatch it up.

Ren Scarborough's life is measured by her differences. She is Half-Japanese and Half-English, raised in London by her father and stepmother. She is also part Reaper, soul collectors who can stop time with clocks made of pure silver and gold, and part Shinigami, demons that ferry souls down to the depths of the Japanese Underworld, Yomi. When she finally has enough of being abused for being different and her Shinigami powers explode -- literally -- leaving other reapers injured, she knows she will be hunted down and left to live the rest of her supernaturally long life trapped in a tomb. With little else to do, she escapes to Japan with her sensitive half-brother, Neven, by her side.

There, she travels to Yomi and meets the Goddess of Death herself, Izanami. She sets Ren up with an impossible task: kill three powerful Yokai to become one of her Shinigami. Ren accepts, and is helped on her task by the jovial, yet mysterious, Shinigami Hiro. Ren wants nothing more to belong, and to possibly find her mother along the way. And she will do anything to get it.

Abby warned me that this one took a minute to get going, with much of the first half being devoted to worldbuilding, but as a fantasy lover I was no stranger to that, and actually don't mind it! At times I clashed with the writing style, which sometimes was too descriptive at the cost of losing tension and readability, stumbling into repeating the same thing again and again. However I loved the mythology in this book, and learning about these amazing monsters and Gods. Ren you'll either love or hate -- she is boiling over with emotion and righteous anger, so much so it sometimes comes at the cost of her relationships. The ending was phenomenal, and luckily, we have another book to look forward to! Check this one out if you're getting tired of good girls and the crushing amounts of Euro-centric fantasy populating the genre.