Kieli, Volume 5: The Sunlit Garden Where It Began, Part 1

Kieli Novels (キーリ ライトノベル) #5

by Yukako Kabei

Reunited after too many hardships, Kieli, Harvey, and the Corporal arrive in Westerbury in hopes of locating Beatrix. Instead, they find themselves settling in with an old friend, Shiman, and his traveling performance troupe. Despite the relative ease of their new arrangement, Kieli senses that Harvey remains strangely distant, and secrets he’s been keeping threaten to tear them apart — perhaps permanently. Is Kieli prepared not only to learn the bitter truths that Harvey has been concealing but also to discover a past that the Undying himself may not recall?

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Paranormal, Novels

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Japanese profile: 壁井ユカコ

Reviews

[Eggi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endlich Endlich geht es in Richtung Vergangenheit von Harvey. Außerdem große Emotionen die langsam nicht mehr unterdrückt werden können. Noch dazu das zweit gemeinste Bandende soweit in der Reihe. Ich habe Band 6 sofort in die Hand genommen!

.... sehe gerade das ich noch dazu extrem schnell fertig mit lesen war O_O Spricht sehr für den Band!

[Savannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harvey, Kieli, and the Corporal journey to Westerbury, which has had a rumor of a "moving corpse", to locate Beatrix. Slowly it is revealed to Kieli just what happened to Harvey while he was alone in the capital, and an old foe returns to tell her the truth of Harvey's core.

When the story about Joachim in the capital came up, I thought maybe I'd feel a little bad for him, but alas I didn't. Joachim's character is just so twisted to me I really can't even sympathize with his horrible condition.

I also have to give major points to Kieli for being so patient. I probably would have already clobbered Harvey for keeping the secret about his core.

[Beatriz · Rating 1 out of 5]

What's chara and plot development? This book sure as heck doesn't know.

What happened here was basically a whole lot of nothing (worse than nothing- It manages to retrocede in quality), even though It has a few hints to very big mysteries in the series, that's not nearly enough to write a whole book about. Imagine a book of filler episodes. This was it.

Like, How can you make the small breadcrumbs of reveals feel so flat? I was so bored and frustrated (emphasis on frustrated) that I didn't even care for The results of 4 books worth of buildup (that led to nothing anyway), I just wanted It to end. And that's ignoring all the glaring issues and cracks the narrative showed.
But more importantly:

WHAT happened to kieli and harvey???? It's like I was reading about very different charas. Which brings me to the worst part of this volume: The "romance" plotline, if you can call It that.

So kieli hits 16 yo and suddenly every adult that comes into contact with the trio wants to bang her or have her date someone? And that's normal somehow? At the same time there's still a lot of remarks of how young she is? One moment her age matters and the next It doesn't at all? It's gross when the weirdos take interest or notice her "curves" (seriously?!), but then there's "OMG, harvey! How are you not dating her yet you're only like a hundred yo and very traumatized! It's totally the best moment and a super good idea". Btw, This happens... A.... LOT. Loads of shitty dialogue overall in this one, let me tell you.

Taboo stuff is something I don't personally mind, but be consistent and try to make It - you know - descent writing, perhaps?

And basically all of their personalities are thrown to the garbage disposal because

a) Harvey suddenly falls down after getting a glimpse of kieli's cleavage?! (The most ridiculous scene ever) and basically starts getting romantic feelings for kieli though what seems to be sheer peer pressure. That's not the chara I knew. That's not how I wanted it to go.
And b) Kieli gets a lobotomy or something because she becomes brainless. There's no other explanation. She just lost her f*cking mind, showing complete dumbassery The entire time. Her 13 yo self had more personality and brains.
I'm done.

[Ricardo Matos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hate authors that develop their characters over a series... and then go back to writing about them as they did on the first book. In this volume it felt even worse as we have just had a 2 year time skip, everybody was older and wiser on volume 4... scrap all that for volume 5...
The supernatural part takes a back seat to some really pointless stories that setup the scenario for this longer story. There are some moderately good horror moments but you don't actually feel they are going to have any impact on the overall story.
There were some interesting points to it, but it just had this childish vibe I couldn't get beyond. What a downturn for a series :S Apparently volumes 5 and 6 are super rare and hard to find under the 100s of $. I guess it's because most of the people who bought them burned them, threw them in the bin or shredded them in protest! :D

[Cherney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this one much better then book 4. However, she had better not be dead. I'm a bit confused as I start reading book 6.

[Elsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been the best so far. We get backstory that explains so much about the characters' personalities and motives. They are often still quite irritating, but.....

[Shatha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end is just *.*

[Niquie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four books left!