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Teenaged Yoko Nakajima seems to have a pretty normal life. She does well but not outstandingly at her all-girls' school, allows her friends to copy her homework when they need it, and lives a comfortable life with her parents. However, "seems" is the operative word. She's smart enough that she should be attending a better school - but her father forbids it. Her "friends" only like her because she's biddable and helps them. Her father only wants to make sure that she never shames him or draws attention to herself. Her mother loves her but won't buck her father's wishes. And her teachers are convinced that she's a troublemaker - despite her immaculate behavior and good grades - because of her flaming red hair, which they're convinced she dyes.

Recently Yoko's sleep has been haunted by terrifying nightmares in which she's being stalked by horrible monsters. Every night, they get closer. She's losing sleep, her grades are suffering, and her teachers decide she's been staying out late clubbing. After she's humiliated for falling asleep in class and has to stay after school to talk with her teachers, Yoko's convinced that life can't get much worse.

Then a golden-haired man interrupts her student-teacher conference, warning of impending doom and demanding a pledge from her. Almost immediately thereafter, all the windows in the room blow out, and the monsters from Yoko's nightmares show up on the roof of the school. In short order, Yoko finds herself in another world - the Twelve Kingdoms - where her home is only a myth, and she is pursued across days and nights by more monsters and demons. Her only salvation is the sword the golden-haired man has given her and the creature that he causes to possess her body so that she can use the weapon. She faces betrayal after betrayal, escape after narrow escape, all sorts of physical and emotional privation, and finally comes face to face with the destiny for which she was born.

I found this a hard book to like, but it's grown on me after a second reading. The lands of the Twelve Kingdoms are governed by a set of fascinating rules, some of which make mythological sense and some of which are utter crack (wait until you find out where babies come from!), but it's all handled with a passionate sincerity that carries you along - if you let it.

No, the babies aren't brought by storks or found under cabbages. They grow on trees. Literally. If you can deal with that, the rest of it ought to be a piece of cake.

Yoko's ordeals through the major part of the book were really, truly unpleasant. I did not enjoy reading them the first time around. The main thing she seemed to be learning was that you couldn't trust anyone. But in retrospect, I found myself thinking of the ordeals of heroes in other mythologies, and how they re-forge the spirits of those who are unaware of their destinies. In Peter Dickinson's wonderful and under-read historical novel The Dancing Bear, the crazy saint, Holy John, speaks of those whose destiny is to bring about the will of God. He compares them to the boy Sylvester's flute, and comments that when the instrument-maker carved the flute from wood, he paid no attention to the wants and feelings of the instrument that was being made. When he polished it to a beautiful sheen, it was not because it would be pleasant for the flute. The sole aim was to create something that would make the proper music. Yoko needs to be carved, polished, and tuned to be the gods' instrument.

Part of Yoko's issues, as a girl in late 20th-century Japan, were that she was utterly passive and went along with everything. Her early ordeals were directly meant to counteract that and make her independent. Only once she had passed that point was she allowed to meet someone who wouldn't betray her - and that person, Rakushun, is small and childlike, so Yoko wouldn't be able to easily feel dependent on him. Not only that, she ends up having to take care of him - when the demons attack - and she fails. From this, she learns responsibility for others. And it's only then - when she realizes that she can trust and care for others from a position of strength, and that this is what it means to be fully human - that she can kill the tormenting monkey (well, that's what she thinks she does) and regain the scabbard to her sword.

The other reason for her ordeals is to bring her face to face with what the Kingdom of Kou has become, and what her kingdom could become. And it's no accident, I think, that it's Rakushun who eventually convinces her to take on the yoke of the kingdom. The beastling boy - seemingly less than human and certainly treated that way in Kou - becomes Yoko's conscience and the exemplar of proper human behavior.

I can't say I like Yoko, but by the time she agrees to become the King of Kei, I feel for her. And I really like the Ever-King and Enki, the kirin of Ki. In fact, Enki is by far my favorite thing in the whole book - even more than Rakushun, who is adorable. But I was really touched by Rakushun's scene where he convinces Yoko, and as part of that, turns into his human form - even though it means he'll be naked, which embarrasses him utterly - so that he can wipe away her tears.

In the end, I liked the book. And I've already read vol. 2, and will blog it soon.