August Reads: Kindling by Traci Chee

[Briony]

For the past few years, realistic fiction has dominated the Printz list. Can this fantasy novel inspired by the Seven Samurai break through this year?

[Heather]

This is not it. The characters and voices are too muddy for the first half, it isn’t til folks begin being picked off that I could properly keep track of everyone. I like the inspiration and source material, but the work build is incomplete, the pacing is terribly sluggish at the beginning, and I don’t think the author propped fleshes out such a large group of characters.