Book Review

[FlockOfHens]

Book Review

Name: Inessa Highm Roberts
Title: "Eldritch Devotion"
Author: Nagase Yasunobu
Date of Submission: 11/08/24

Directions:
1. Pick out a written book for this assignment.
2. Answer all questions with detailed paragraphs.

Question 1: What is the story about?
The novel "Eldritch Devotion" by Nagase Yasunobu is about a young man who had summoned a mind flayer during a ritual. The story begins with Mitsuko, a university student, becoming intrested in the occult after not being successful in their classes. They conduct a ritual in hopes of gaining a powerful boon in order to be more popular and smarter, but because of the complicated sigils, they ended up summoning a mindflayer instead. The Illithid, Zunchalt, it a vessel for one of the Great Old Ones and his commanded to reek havoc in the material plane. But due to some certain rules, Zunchalt has to ask Mitsuko to aid them in their lord's wishes. But along the way, both began to develop feelings for one another.

Question 2: What are the themes and conflicts in the story?
The themes followed are Ambition and Trust. For the first theme, both characters are driven to fulfill thier goals because of their burning ambitions; Mitsuko wants to be in good graces of the gods in order to have their own wishes met, while Zunchalt wants to complete their god's orders and spead chaos and horror across Japan. The second theme comes across the building trust the two characters have for one another. At the first half of the story, the two are distrustful towards one another, with one seing the other as a monster. But as the story goes on, the begin to trust in each other by listening to their backstories and pains.

Question 3: How would you rate this book from 1 - 10? Explain your answer.
After reading this book, I would rate it an 8/10. While the story is still endearing, I think that the pacing of how the story progresses if a bit too fast, almost as if Yasunobu wanted to try fitting everything in one book. Because of this, there was no build-up within the villains of each chapter, the same goes with the romance between Mitsuko and Zunechalt.

Question 4: What are your final thoughts about the book?
I feel like there should've been more time in creatign a build-up in the story. If it has to expand to another book or two, then that would've worked perfectly. The story was heading towards a good purpose and had many insperational characters, but ultimatly fell short with the delivery. And while we're on the subject on characters, the villain in chapter 14 sucks. What was Yasunobu thinking when he tried to make Mitsuko's cat a one-time villain??

Final Grade: D
A light novel doesn't count as a written novel. See me after class.