Book Review: The Archer of Hirado by Rob Ruggenberg

 

Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De boogschutter van Hirado.

Okay so funny story, I was in a hurry at the library one afternoon and ended up picking up this book by complete accident due to not fully paying attention. I was looking for another book with an archer on the front cover with by an author with a similar name, and when I pulled this from the shelves in a rush it looked similar enough to the book I was actually looking for. 

But I ended up reading it anyways, of course. This is actually my second book by Ruggenberg that I'm reading. He seems to like writing historical fiction. Spoilers ahead. Also, this review contains a brief mention of CSA. Just a quick warning.

Reyer, a boy learning under the Dutch East Indian Company, is sent to Hirado in Japan to deliver a message. Here, he falls head over heels in love with Sakura, the daughter of a samurai who has been sold away for marriage to a disgusting man. Reyer is desperate to help his new flame escape her awful marriage, but this is not without danger.

A quite brutal book. Like, even if it wasn't as dark as it could've been it still was pretty brutal. The way in which the criminals are executed by tying them to a rock at sea before the tide comes in so they'll eventually drown? Yeesh.

The book itself is...honestly just serviceable. The characters are decent, I like Sakura in particular, she was pretty damn strong despite being an awful situation being married to someone who she hates. Reyer was also okay, but the other characters were kind of one note.

My main gripe with the story is a pretty big one, though: the insta-love. If there's one trope in romance fiction I can't stand it's this one, and it's very prominently featured here. Reyer and Sakura meet for the first time and from then from both of their POV's it's just mostly them remembering and pining over the other. Which gets old pretty fast. Especially considering Sakura is in a totally miserable situation but somehow she still has the time to keep thinking about this random boy she saw once and had no meaningful contact with whatsoever. 

And even after they do formally meet, these two have so little interactions? They're barely seen together, we don't see much conversation between the two, etc. Heck, we do get some implications that it happened off-page but considering these two are our romantic leads, shouldn't we be having more interactions of these two and not less? I'm pretty sure Sakura has more page-time together with her godawful gross husband than her actual love interest. Really, most of the book is just Sakura and Reyer separately pining over one another.

Their romance also feels very shallow since they mostly seem to think about how the other looks, very little actual other details on why they like one another. Wouldn't it have been stronger if Reyer/Sakura fell for the other's personality or whatnot? Instead of this instant connection they seem to have mostly based on looks alone. It's just weak writing. Even in Ruggenberg's other book I've read, Pirate's Son (Piratenzoon), the romance between Zain and Kat felt believable. They were given time to interact and connect and, heck, they didn't even always get along or like one another. Their interactions thus felt more genuine and believable. Here the romance was just handled very poorly.

One thing I am glad about is that this book didn't delve into actual CSA. Sakura (who is a minor, by the way) is sold to Wonderaer as a wife and he is horrible and gross and sexist and treats her horribly, but thankfully they never actually delve into him sexually assaulting her. The book was already pretty dark and I feel like adding CSA to the mix would've definitely made it go too far in that direction. The "relationship" between Wonderaer and Sakura is already godawful enough just how it is written here, we don't need to add CSA into the mix and thank god Ruggenberg didn't. 

Overall this was a pretty okay book but for me the romance kind-of ruined it. I'd have given it 3.5/4 stars otherwise but this is just one of the most poorly written romances I've read in recent years.

Rating: 3/5