This is not the first of the Shakugan no Shana novels. It's the second. I tried to find the first, but none of the bookstores I looked in had it, and I was entirely too lazy to order it online. It's okay, though, I know what happens well enough. I knew what happened in this one, too, before I read it.
I'm familiar with the story because I've seen the anime series based on the novels. I really liked said series. When I really like a series based on a series of novels and some of the novels have been translated into English... of course I'm going to seek them out.
If you're wondering, Wikipedia tells me "Shakugan no Shana" translates into "Shana of the Burning Eyes." And to be technical, they're not novels, they're light novels. But the "light novel" doesn't really exist in American publishing excepting the translated Japanese imports, so using the term might be a bit confusing.
This isn't the first time I've talked about a light novel here. This time, however, I have none of those complaints. Despite the situation being superficially identical (i.e., I saw the anime first, then read the novel, and so I knew exactly how the plot went beforehand) I this time really enjoyed it.
Shana has two things going for it that Haruhi didn't. Well, three. First, I was comfortable while I read it; when I read Haruhi I was half-sitting, half-lying on a picnic table, trying to keep papers from flying away in the breeze, giving half my attention to my friends nearby. Second, the animation studio (J.C. Staff in this case) wasn't as exactly faithful in their adaption; there were little things here and there that weren't in the anime (or the other way around!). And third, the writing style is just plain more enjoyable to read.
The narration in Shana has just the slightest touch of constant humor. The POV jumps around a lot, and has no problem showing the thoughts of whoever it's following, but the actual narration remains independent and there are times when it feels like the narrator is getting a little exasperated by the characters.
But as your typical high school kid, Yuji didn't have an appreciation for this kind of artwork. Even if he did sense the mastery and subtlety of the pieces in front of him, he didn't know how to express himself.
Gazing at the graceful curves of a sculpted hand, all he could say was, "That's beautiful."
And at a cube filled with sparkling glass bubbles, "That's beautiful."
He was just culturally unskilled.
[...]
And Kazumi, poor Kazumi. She was so nervous around Yuji, she had trouble talking as well.
All she could say was, "Yes, I think so too." She was just as bad as him.
But wait! Is this book really about a couple of awkward teens at a museum? Well, no; I picked that excerpt because it doesn't really give anything away. The novel does, however, spend a fair bit of time in said museum. It's not exactly long, so almost everything it mentions has to be important--that's one of the qualities of the "light" novel. But this book takes heavily destructive action from one character's POV and art galleries from the other, puts them together, and makes both entertaining. Part of it is narration like the above, but mostly it's a really good sense of when enough is enough. The action isn't so drawn-out it becomes monotonous, and the art gallery only goes on for so long before the awkwardness is interrupted by... well, I won't say. But the emotional pacing is superb.
Other than that, there's not much to say. The book tries to re-explain most of the basic concepts that make up the series's world, but it doesn't do a very good job. At least I think that if somebody started with this book with no prior knowledge of the series at all, they'd quickly become lost. Maybe I'm underestimating them, but personally I think the explanations were more for the sake of reminding people who may have forgotten since the first novel than they were for drawing in new people. I really didn't care; I understand most of the concepts in greater detail than the novel describes, thanks to the anime.
...Here's where I complain about needing pesky things like translations. See, this is the last book in the series to have been translated into English, at least officially. Do you wanna know how many there are in the series in Japan? Twenty one. With a twenty-second coming in September. And sure, I know the plots to most of those thanks to two seasons of the anime, but that just can't compare. I'm a book person, after all. I want to read.
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