Alya’s Reviews > Espíritu > Status Update

JUJITSU KAISEN MANGA?? Just mentioned in passing?? Why???? This book has already aged like a crème brûlée oh my god

The book has moments of being good when we focus on Rio and Julian's relationship — the older brother is truly THE ONLY saving grace in this story. I like how he is very clearly a tired 24 year old and cares deeply for his brother, but is putting up a front of strength for this traumatised group of 16 year olds. Just wish it had been written better.

Yeah, Lita’s characterisation is pissing me off. She’s just a caricature of a person and has zero actual writing behind her. It feels like AI wrote her character if I’m being honest.

Okay, small nitpick, but Julian was terrified of dogs in the previous book, and he’s described as friendly and smiling towards stray dogs in this chapter. The inconsistencies keep adding up 🙄

Julian acts like someone who’s been forcibly married into another community and is ETERNALLY grateful to Yadriel for doing the bare minimum courtesy in any situation. What happened to his actual personality, his short temper and commitment to his friends? Would the same character really be fine with keeping his whole life secret from them? And they barely factor into the story either – why even have them here?

Maybe it’s just the narration by Avi Roque, but I cannot stand Lita as a character. She is such a caricature of a grandmother and has genuinely no depth or interiority outside cooking food for the main characters.

Ángel has just entered the chat, they’re fine as a character and I’m glad that we’re not getting a love triangle, but I’m also annoyed that everything is so surface level. Also – is it just me or is this story borrowing VERY heavily from the movie ‘Encanto’? Up to and including the way ‘Lita’ is described and the house being ‘alive’?

Julian’s friends feel very interchangeable in this book, as though the author chose character traits at random for each scene. Also, the lack of conflict between them and Yadriel (brujx in general) is why this book falls so flat right now. They’ve fully accepted him into their group, so now the only thing that could drive the plot is some scary spiritual threat that I doubt will carry any suspense.

Whatever I think about this book, I absolutely love Vico Ortiz as an audiobook narrator. They add so much depth to some of these sections that I can tell weren’t there in just the text alone.

Don’t want to be a total killjoy but why tf is Jules even with Yadriel, Yads is a completely self absorbed jackass and doesn’t EVER think about something other than his own ego aghhhh