I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
An interesting idea behind this story and I liked the Japanese background to the story 
However, the story lacked a lot of world building which seemed limited to the glossary at the beginning. It was difficult to get into the story and engage with it. 
An OK read.

I have to admit, I was skeptical about a non-ownvoices author writing about other cultures outside of their own. Especially with how much white authors botched Asian cultures in their books. But it seems that Dani Hoots did some research to capture aspects of Japanese culture within their book that also respects the culture for the most part. I cannot say if everything is accurate or respecting of Japanese culture and lore as I am not Japanese, so I'd definitely like to see what Japanese readers think of this title. One thing that the author/pub could do when writing about other cultures is to consult a beta reader of the same ethnicity as what they're writing about.

I have received an arc of this book from Netgalley and the publisher. What drawn me to the book first was that beautiful cover.

The legend of Akikumo is a Japanese fantasy. And I have really love this tale.

 Ketsueki is a kitsune. When she was young, the village she was leaving in was attack and her parents killed. She was adopted by the last okami, a wolf, of all Japan. The story goes back and forth between past and present. As Akikumo and Ketsueki travels Japan and this one is trying to help her trust human again. One day they reach he Inari Shrine and Akikumo left Ketsueki without saying goodbye. Just a letter saying that it would be better for her to be with other kitsune. But she don't fit in since she wasn't born to the shrine and the other are bullying her and saying that her mentor won't return for her since his death. But she refuse to believe it.

One day, after again causing trouble, she tought she would be punished but instead Inari have a task for her, find out what happen to Akikumo. She will agree without hesitation but regret a bit when learning that a human will come with her. A strange boy, son of the shrine’s head priest. He can see yokai, wich is really common in preseng Japan. Can she learn to finally trust a human again...

I LOVE the cover and, for the most part, adored the friendships between the characters. They were all quite close! I also enjoyed the storyline, too! It kept me engaged enough to keep reading, which is all I really ask of a good book. My only complaint is....this isn't written the way most fantasy books are. That could be a good thing in most cases, but in this case, the writing did make it a little hard for me to immerse myself in the world and truly feel a part of it.

Thank you to the publisher for an early copy! Unfortunately, due to personal matters I could not finish this book before release.

This is one of those books that caught my eye because of the summary and promise, but it fell flat. It’s very descriptive in its events and leaves almost no space to get involved or immersed. And this is something I’ve found myself hating, especially in fantasies.

I also found that the writing isn’t my cup of tea and felt unedited and juvenile.  

I think this book can use more editing and a complete change of writing style. It seems to be more of a contemporary style, rather than fantasy.  I also didn’t feel like the characters had any life or personality in them.

I enjoy Ms. Hoots work and this was a lot of fun to read. The characters were great and I really liked the storyline. I look forward to reading more from the author.

This was really difficult to get through.

It reads like a middle grade and has a ridiculous amount of Japanese terms with zero context. I felt like I was reading a testing exam rather than enjoying a book. The characters were flat and the narrative felt like it was plucked from a slow-paced, forgettable slice of life anime. 

This one was unfortunately a miss for me.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank-you to netgalley and the publisher for an earc in exchange of an honest review. 

I had to DNF this after 11%. I don’t like to do it but I knew very quickly that this wouldn’t hold my attention. 
The writing is very stilted and more like a middle grade novel than a YA. 

Further to that the random Japanese word drops was incredibly annoying. It’s totally fine to include another culture and the author obviously has an understanding of these things, but there are ways to include them in a novel without italicising every foreign word. 

I guess I’m also not a fan of first person narratives and this felt more like a self insert fan fiction than a polished novel. I definitely see that there is potential here, but I think it needs a lot more work to be engaging. Everything felt so rushed and the characters didn’t really feel real. 

I would definitely read more of the authors work in the future, but I think it would need more beta readers and editing passes.

received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A Japanese inspired story that had some good moments in it but sadly was just missing it's golden nugget of authenticity. 

The author, like myself, is a huge fan of Japanese culture and their history, which shows within the story. But at times the writing style seemed a little sluggish. 

I enjoyed the concept of the main character and her personality, she just needed to be a little more polished. I also enjoyed her interactions with others and there were some quite sad but also some quite lovely moments. 

For anyone who doesn't enjoy stories that flick from past to present every other chapter then just be aware that this is what this story does.

I liked it but I wasn't in love with it sadly.

I recieved an arc of this digitally and initially was intrigued by the premise. The story of a kitsune and human going on a journey to find a lost friend seemed like one that could be filled with mystery.  The first thing to put me off was the lengthy guide at the beginning. It seemed over done and off putting. This also became somewhat condescending when all the words in the guide were in italics in the text. If this was actually for emphasis it fell short. The story was drawn out descriptions of the world that were too lengthy at time’s and lead me to skim past to dialogue. The mc seem very immature for 700+ year old kitsune. Just as the story came to a more interesting point it was over, being a stand-alone seemed to leave tuis feeling very flat and drawn out for not a lot of plot progression.  The ebook file was also badly displayed, the bird picture at the chapter start often obscuring the text. One chapter was repeated twice. This story did have potential but for me did not fulfill it.

This book was great but it was also really short. I can't wait to read more books from this author in the future. Great book.

Expected a lot from this book with its premise. The cover is gorgeous and the author has done alot of research.
But this book had alot of voice and no plot! Most of the time , the MC just did nothing except talking and waiting for trains. The text was so littered with Japanese words that it becomes almost illegible. I really wanted to like this book but would have enjoyed it more if the mundane terms were translated. (Baka)

In reading Dani Hoots’ Legend of Akikumo, I was definitely reliving that feeling of settling down for a new anime series. The tone reminded me of Inuyasha meets Rurouni Kenshin–a story of a traveling outcast with a long-term goal, accented by various smaller struggles along the way.

Ketsueki is a feisty and sympathetic protagonist. Rejected by her fellow kitsune (wolf spirits), she sets off on a journey to find her long-lost mentor. While many believe him dead, she is sure he is alive, although doubt does threaten to drag her down from time to time. Accompanying Ketsueki is a strange human who can see yokai (spirits) like her. It’s the relationship of these two, mirrored by her past relationship with her mentor that really drives the story. Ketsueki constantly struggles to understand humans, and often makes rash judgments. In both her present and her past–the book gives roughly equal pages to both–her traveling companion helps bring out the best in her. The book doesn’t dump lengthy backstory but reveals just enough to be relevant and interesting. Finishing the novel left me with that same feeling I got when I’d completed the first arc of a long-but-promising series.

The book contains a glossary at the start, filled half with terms I was familiar with from studying Japanese and half with terms I had yet to learn. There’s a lot of debate around how many non-English words should be used when English isn’t the language the characters are presumably speaking. My philosophy is to assume the audience has no experience in the language and save the non-English words for those terms which truly have no English equivalent. For example, there’s no good substitute for terms like kimono, but words like baka (idiot) could be translated. I leave this not as a criticism but as an observation, since I know not everyone takes the same point of view. Many writers and readers feel non-English words should be used more liberally, and there’s certainly no right or wrong here.

Overall, Legend of Akikumo was a relaxing book with a strong set-up for future stories.

I wanted to love The Legend of Akikumo . It sounded like a great match for me. Title, Cover, Premise were great but  I cannot get into it. I don't have the motivation in going on reading it at the moment. It starts really slow and I tried it some time to go on but...I think this book don't work for me at this moment. I will go back to it in the future and try it again. I know the author is great and there a lot of people who like this book.

Thanks for the ARC again, I really appreciate it.
But this was let down for me.
The book read like it was trying to hard to show off Japan but not in the best way, the best way to explain is when Americans try too hard to show off that they know Japanese, inserting random words that some people would not have known unless they watched anime. For a book being centered in Japan I don't expect to see words like baka and stuff like that because why wouldn't the whole book be in Japanese too? It confused me and did  not make sense to put those words in there. 
All in all, in keeping with the anime aspect, almost the entire book was filler, constant back stories and then present time. It felt like whiplash.

This story was incredible until it ended. A great adventure that mixed two time lines (contemporary Japan and several centuries of old Japan), added kami (Japanese spirits), a pinch of found families and a quest and you get the core of The Legend of Akikumo.

We start following a very mischievous fox spirit (kitsune) with a wrecked past that was left "safe" in a shrine by her mentor/savior, a lone wolf spirit (more of an ancient god servant), and after a fall out with some of the local kitsune is assigned a task: finding her lost mentor and making sense of may strange things happening around.

But alas, she can run a quest on her own and so she will find her path (literally, since she is incapable of moving around the human contemporary world being a 700+ year old kami) thanks to the son of the shrine's priest (human obviously) and would uncover a hard truth.

This contemporary adventure is accompany, chapter in, chapter out, by the background story that links Aki-chan and Kat-chan in this sweet fatherly like relation of two spirits roaming together old Japan or almost 400 years (yeah they get to see a lot happening!).

I was hooked up from the beginning, since the author's writing style is very cinematic and you feel like you are moving around with the characters, it actually reminded  me a lot of anime like Inuyasha, in its duality of times, quest sense and Japanese culture.

An added bonus is the glossary included that would help those not so acquainted with the Japanese terminology, well spread throughout the book.

The only downfall for me would be the ending scene, where I found a lack of purpose towards the following challenges introduced. I would had also enjoy it more if it development a deeper relation between the main character and her human companion, since it felt like bits were missing or underdeveloped.

Still, is a very recommended read if you wish to have a great time traveling around, learning more about Japanese culture and history and at the end of the day, finding you place in the world. 

An ARC of this book was kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this one so much. It has my aesthetic. It has my vibes. It has all the things that I really love. It just didn't quite get there. 
 
This is the story of Ketsueki, who is one of the last kitsunes to be born in the last several hundred years. At this point, she's about 700 years old and she hasn't seen her best friend and mentor, Akikumo, for quite a long time. She's pretty confident that he's still alive but everyone else is telling her that he's probably dead. She is sent out to go and find him and figure out what has happened. But she is not sent out alone, with the task she is accompanied by a human who has the ability to see yokai. It flips back and forth between the past when she first met Akikumo and the present where she is searching for him. 
 
The premise of this book is fascinating. I love Japanese culture and this had a lot of that embedded in it. It was very helpful that at the beginning it had a section that explained all of the different terms and all of the different people. It was a little disconcerting at times having to flip back and forth trying to understand the terms if you don't have an understanding of Japanese culture. 

The way it is written, it's marketed as YA, but it reads a bit more middle grade. The main character, while she is 700 years old, it is hard to imagine that she has those years of experience behind her. She acts very young which is why I started to get some of these middle-grade vibes. Especially with how she interacts with the human that she's a companion with and a lot of the authority figures. She's constantly demeaning humans and downgrading them into something that isn't worth it. It gets very repetitive in that mindset. It's constantly this human bashing. I sort of understand where she is coming from. She's got a lot of back history. But it's hard to get through this read when it is every other sentence or three times on one page and then three times on the next page. It gets a little grating. 

A lot of characters didn't feel like they had any heart and soul. They felt very flat and they could have been switched out for anybody else. I don't think this was as developed as it could have been to really make this epic adventure in finding oneself or just giving it some kind of climactic experience. This book didn't really have that. You kind of go through and you're supposed to connect with Ketsueki and you just don't. It didn't have enough humanity in it to really build it up into a place where there was this development or there was that pull. This book was marketed as this grand adventure of figuring out what happened to her mentor, to her best friend, and it kind of got there but didn't. Yeah, there was some journey. Yeah, there was meeting some of these more monstrous yokai. But it didn't bring any passion to it and I think that's what was lacking for me in this story. I want to see more of that development. I want there to be this journey. I want to feel the journey. I just don't want to be given a bunch of words on a page that say:
- She started out here 
- Some things happen 
- You're supposed to feel some things because this is her backstory 
- Humans are bad 
- Here's the ending
That is what I feel like I got. I need to feel like I went on a journey and I can now sit down and relax. but it felt like I was driven around in a circle and dropped off on the wrong street.

There's so much going for it. The cover is absolutely gorgeous and it does play with a lot of those anime and manga themes that I really like. But it felt like a slight ripoff of some of those story arcs. So would I recommend this read? Maybe not. I mean if you like reading in this genre, I mean, you might find some pieces you really truly enjoy in this read.

Unfortunately this book really wasn’t for me, I was so eager to read this based on the synopsis and the stunning cover, but the actual story let me down. The story and writing was chaotic, it just was such a chore to finish. The characters were not developed well and felt completely one dimensional, sad to say  I wasn’t a fan of this

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I saw this cover and the summary and was hooked. I had my fingers crossed that I’d be approved for an ARC and I was! I looked at the reviews before reading (which I normally don’t do, but I’ve been burned a lot this month so far and I wanted appropriate expectations going on). The reviews were… bad. I still had hope but it was a bit tempered.

However!!! I felt like I was transported back to my anime-loving younger self! It gives me all the vibes of InuYasha, despite it being completely different story wise. I loved it immediately.

The story is told in dual POV: one contemporary and one historic but both Kestueki. It was done marvelously. You can tell the different maturity level between the POVs.

I also got some mushy feelings surrounding the relationship bonds between the characters. It was very “homey”.

My only complaints are that I hate the last page of the book (and really that whole chapter shouldn’t be there!) and that I wish there was more banter between Ketosis and Yamato. Otherwise, I loved it.

If you are (or were) an anime fan, I recommend. It does have a slow-pace with pops of actions, exactly like InuYasha.

I would be interested in seeing this expanded into a series because I want to see what happens!

I am a Teen and YA reviewer, and this was marketed to me as a Teen and YA book, but it is quite clearly an elementary or middle grade read. The actions and prose of the main character speak to a 4th or 5th grade reading level and while I'm sure people looking for that type of reading experience would greatly appreciate this book, I personally feel lied to about what I thought would be a Japanese Mythological Young Adult Book experience. So, unfortunately, I would not recommend this book as it is currently marketed, but I feel like it would make a great addition to a 4th-7th grade library.