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Kieli Novels (キーリ ライトノベル) #5

Kieli, Vol. 5 (novel): The Sunlit Garden Where It Began (Part 1) (Kieli (novel), 5)

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(Volume 1) A lonely girl. An Undying soldier. An uncommon romance. Kieli is a reclusive girl isolated by her ability to see ghosts. Her only friend is her "roommate," Becca, the precocious spirit of a former student still residing in Kieli's dorm. Everything in Kieli's life changes suddenly when the girls meet the handsome but distant Harvey who, like Kieli, can see ghosts. He also turns out to be one of the legendary Undying, an immortal soldier bred for war now being hunted by the Church. When Kieli joins Harvey on a pilgrimage to lay to rest the spirit of a corporal possessing an old radio, as unlikely as it seems, she feels she may have finally found a place where she belongs in the world. And in Kieli, Harvey may have found a reason to live again.

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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127 people want to read

About the author

Yukako Kabei

38 books35 followers
Japanese profile: 壁井ユカコ

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5 stars
62 (46%)
4 stars
52 (38%)
3 stars
17 (12%)
2 stars
1 (<1%)
1 star
2 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for Eggi.
110 reviews9 followers
February 19, 2018
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!
Profile Image for Savannah.
22 reviews1 follower
September 15, 2011
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.

Profile Image for Beatriz.
86 reviews3 followers
March 4, 2020
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

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.
Profile Image for Ricardo Matos.
471 reviews4 followers
October 6, 2018
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
Profile Image for Cherney.
373 reviews
November 17, 2023
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.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Elsa.
1,092 reviews8 followers
September 30, 2014
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.....
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews

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