Review: Gate to Kagoshima

Gate to Kagoshima by Poppy Kuroki
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

1.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

She was here on a mission: to find her third-great-grandfather’s history. 

Gate to Kagoshima was a time travel historical fiction feeling, through internal observation and introspection of 1877 cultural Kagoshima Japan, with a romantic element story. Isla grew up in Scotland but has ancestral roots in Japan, roots that she feels a pull to search for more information about. When she has some free time from her study aboard courses in Tokyo, she takes a trip to Kagoshima. Armed with some vague knowledge that her third great grandfather was one of the famed Samurai of the Satsuma Rebellion, she travels there to try and research more about him. Only she gets more than she bargained for when she gets lost exploring a shrine and goes from 2005 to 1877. 

Isla tried to remind herself that Takamori Saigō died one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, along with the rest of the last samurai, but knowing this didn’t make the man she was staring at seem either a fluke or trick. 

The first half of this was somewhat slow going, it leaned heavily into the historical fiction aspects. I enjoyed the mixture of real life historical figures and events with fictional characters but, as this was told mostly from Isla's point-of-view, with Maeda Keiichirō having a good amount of pov passages and then one or two from other secondary characters, most of the story was told from inside her head, relaying her thoughts about what she was seeing. This was more observational introspection, with not much dialogue (we do get more in the second half). I like inclusion of historical elements but this felt like focusing on the research for spouting facts purpose; it was a story about setting instead of characters, readers who came for a more character journey would struggle with this first half.

History was unfolding before her eyes. 

The story did get going with the time travel right away, Isla was in 1877 by 20% in and she met Keiichirō right away. He gets tasked with sheltering her and watching her as they think she could be a spy. After Isla integrates herself into the community life a bit, the second half did pick up some steam with the historical march and fighting at Kumamoto Castle. There we get some jarring, for what the tone of the story felt like previously, gory scenes of death and fighting and Isla worrying over Keiichirō. The romance wasn't really romancing for me as it wasn't too focused on in the first half and then the second half just kind of tries to force the reader that they feel this incredible love for each other. In his own words Keiichirō summed it up for me: They had never touched unless by accident, or talked about deeply personal things, or even stared into each other’s eyes. And yet Keiichirō knew his life would be less if Isla wasn’t there, and her absence would be like draining all the colour from the world. He just knew. 

You're just supposed to know that they have this intense love, because there wasn't any development for it. 

The rain pelted the hillside, the torii gate waiting on top. 

The latter second half had some awkward time jumps, feeling like jumbled scenes together, an open-door scene that also did not feel like it fit at all, and some reveals. One of the reveals involved Keiichirō's sister and it honestly was so incredibly not needed and because of the time period I'm living in right now, it felt pointed jammed in a way that had my hackles raising all the way up. I'll put what it was in spoiler tags 

****SPOILER***

Years ago when Keiichirō's dad found his sister pregnant, she told him that she was raped. The dad slices the rapist's throat in his sleep, which makes the killing not honorable and so as a samurai, the dad commits seppuku, kills himself. Towards the end it's found out that the sister lied about the rape to hide her promiscuity and there's some relaying at how this lying destroys so many people. Just personally not in the mood for this kind of messaging when we know the percentages of fake rape accusations and prevalence of rape 

****SPOILER****

If this doesn't raise your hackles, you'd probably not have the bad taste in your mouth like I did towards the end. The ending stayed true to the real historical event and the romance gave a Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux-ish end. The first half was slow paced but could interest observational historical fiction readers but the second half and ending was a jumbled mess of pace, tone, and scenes.

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