{"id":867,"date":"2008-12-22T22:32:34","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T03:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=867"},"modified":"2021-12-16T09:36:29","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T14:36:29","slug":"shinju","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/867","title":{"rendered":"Shinju"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shinju<\/em> (1994) Laura Joh Rowland<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Shinju\"<\/a>It’s 1698 and Sano Ichiro is a yoriki, or magistrate who is assigned the case of a shinju–or ritual suicide to two star-crossed lovers.<\/p>\n

Although he is pushed to close the case, something about the deaths bothers Sano, and he is determined to discover the truth of the deaths–no matter the cost.<\/p>\n

A couple things about Shinju<\/em>. This is the first book in a series, and I think it shows. By the end of the book, it seemed like just one more thing<\/em> happened entirely too many times, to the point Sano was beginning to come across as a bit of a superhero. He made plenty of mistakes mind you, and didn’t seem to be a Mary Sue, but he just kept managing to be in the right place at the right time, and getting away just in the nick of time.<\/p>\n

It just got to be a bit much.<\/p>\n

The second thing is that although the setting was in Japan, the book still felt very Western to me. It’s not even anything I can put my finger on, after all, as far as I know the details of time and place are well done and correct. There was just something about the way Sano acted and thought that felt as though it were a westerner explaining what was happening. <\/p>\n

However, aside from those flaws I kept reading, so it wasn’t all bad. And I have hopes that the next books in the series will have been tightened up a bit more.
\nRating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shinju (1994) Laura Joh Rowland It’s 1698 and Sano Ichiro is a yoriki, or magistrate who is assigned the case of a shinju–or ritual suicide to two star-crossed lovers. Although he is pushed to close the case, something about the deaths bothers Sano, and he is determined to discover the truth of the deaths–no matter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,33,8,291],"tags":[322,323,513],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asian","category-historical","category-mystery","category-paper","tag-laura-joh-rowland","tag-sano-ichiro","tag-suicide"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/siQkW-shinju","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9350,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/9350","url_meta":{"origin":867,"position":0},"title":"Shinju","author":"Michelle","date":"October 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Shinju (1984) Laura Joh Rowland Yoriki Sano Ichiro has been assigned to clear the case of a double-suicide. He has been given strict orders by his supervisor as what he is precisely to do. However, he is rather unsuited to following orders and instead looks into the death, which some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Asian"","block_context":{"text":"Asian","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/asian"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/shinju.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4681,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4681","url_meta":{"origin":867,"position":1},"title":"Dangerous Women","author":"Michelle","date":"June 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Dangerous Women (2013) edited by George R.R. 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Adding to the confusion, one of the suicides turned out to be a famous poet, O.A. Manning, whose poems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/Wings-Fire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":532,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/532","url_meta":{"origin":867,"position":3},"title":"White Night","author":"Michelle","date":"March 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"White Night (2007) Jim Butcher I've been reading the Dresden Files series for awhile now, even when Harry was annoying the crap out of me, by being incredibly stupid and obtuse. But the books got better, and Harry got smarter, and the stories have been getting better ever since. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/White-Knight.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23258,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/23258","url_meta":{"origin":867,"position":4},"title":"Think of England","author":"Michelle","date":"February 24, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Think of England (2014) K.J. Charles Set in England in 1904 (Peakholme) had been an extraordinarily modern creation at that time, equipped with the very latest innovations, with running water in all the bathrooms, heated by hot-water radiators and illuminated throughout by electricity from his own hydroelectric generator. \u201cIt was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Think of England","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Think-of-England.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4073,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4073","url_meta":{"origin":867,"position":5},"title":"The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West","author":"Michelle","date":"October 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West (2006) Chris Enss The stories in this book are very interesting--it's a look at the women who were the pioneers of medicine in the old West. The problem is that the writing is pretty terrible. 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