Book Review I: Cloud of Sparrows

Since this is my first book review, let me just explain a few things. I will not give away spoilers or plot lines, I am simply going to give my likes and dislikes in vague descriptions. You can look up more info on the book online if you want to, I'm just giving my opinion of it. This is not Operas book club. Also I wont be giving star, scale, or any other rating system. My rating style is stating whether or not the book will be staying on my shelf or not (this is very literal too, I have a bookshelf that holds all of the books I cant bare to part with, I think I'm going to need a bigger one soon). I hope you enjoy!

I just recently finished one of the books recommended to me by my boyfriend. Granted, this is the first book for me to finish that he has recommended, two others I have yet to finish. It's not that they are boring, I just had too much reading for my classes to even hope to finish one at a reasonable time.

On a better note, I finally finished one and am very pleased with myself as well as it. Set in Japan during the Samurai era, it was an obvious interest for me. The characters Matsuoka created were very developed and had deep personalities. Each had an enticing background story and seemed to create a personal attachment to the reader. I get lost in all of the names quickly but by creating a reference list with a short description of all major players it became much easier to keep track of everyone. Towards the end of the book I found myself skimming slightly. This is a horrible habit I picked up while reading Huckleberry Finn and the Twilight Saga (mock me, but I needed to see what all of the hype was about). I continued to force my self to read each word for the last 30 pages and was glad I did.

All in all I really enjoyed this book and recommend that if you have not already read it, then you should. It's staying on my bookshelf.