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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Kohōpeh’s The Kabuki Book takes place in Japan after the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara, as Tokugawa power begins settling over Kyō. Okuni no Izumo is an exiled shrine maiden traveling to the capital after brigands steal her ox cart. When a servant abandons her on a mountain road, she claims Niten, a war-scarred swordsman on martial pilgrimage, as her guardian. Okuni brings shrine dance into a city where public performance can feed a person or place her in danger. Her healing knowledge belongs to the same sacred training that made her useful, then disposable, at Izumo. Niten seeks the Void beyond killing, while Okuni’s art draws kami and river gods into the human world. On the dry Kamo riverbed, her dance begins moving toward the theater that history will call Kabuki. “They were no longer just a troupe of temple dancers; they were Kabuki, and they would continue to bend.”
Kohōpeh’s The Kabuki Book is brilliant historical fantasy that feels native to Okuni’s world. The period detail is excellent. The prose is almost cinematic, like a description of the landscape after a storm, where the road drops from the mountain forest to paddies, with the Seto Inland Sea in the backdrop. And there's a sea dragon! This is a parallel storyline. Ryūjin, the sea dragon, alongside the earth god, Ōnamuji, are at odds in a way that impacts Okuni's journey. Kohōpeh breathes life into an incredible convergence. The star of the book is the writing itself, when stories punctuate the main line. In them, Kohōpeh writes in loose iambic pentameter and end-rhymes that frequently contract into couplets. Well written and creative, readers who enjoy historical fantasy and lore, and are curious as to why jellyfish have no bones, will adore this book. Very highly recommended.
