I had heard a lot about this novel and so expectations were set! Extreme disappointment is the order of the day!! If you are into Japanese culture then it maybe this is for you but this was extremely hard to follow!! As a non follower of Japanese culture, terms, names, hierarchy were all dropped in from the start and made it extremely difficult to follow! And then the story! Where do I start? Jumps in timeline without reference! How do you do you explain the change in main characters half way through? Big holes appear everywhere? And Fantasy? This book could have been easily rewritten without any reference to magic, etc! The book was well read and this deserves 10/10 but doesn’t make up for a wretched story!