Over on my Substack, I (kind of) reviewed What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and I’m planning on making more posts on cozy books over on Mooey’s Cozy Corner so make sure you subscribe to my newsletter to get notified if you’re interested. However, today I have a special book post featuring my first book review on Mooeyandfreinds! I can’t wait to introduce you all to a new book written by a new kawaii author!
A few months ago, I was reached out by Renaya L. Moore and she asked if I would read and review her first novel, Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence. She wrote and illustrated the book cover and independently published her book series, Kodomo Doki Doki.
Renaya L. Moore is a fairykei writer and illustrator. You can follow her on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. She posted some cute vlogs on her creating Kodomo Doki Doki on her YouTube which I had a fun time watching.
DISCLAIMER: I was provided with an advance reader copy of this book for free. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Links included in this post might be affiliate links. I may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you.
DESCRIPTION
Because they were born as Florals (persons with flowers growing from the skin), a group of friends ages eight through seventeen are sent away from their familiar orphanage to a decrepit island, on which they are expected to live as if the entirety of it is an ordinary home of wall and ceiling.
The Island isn’t the only decrepit thing though, as the group’s friendship is crumbling in the wake of a breaking promise meant to hold back their darkest fears and a secret trauma, kept only between two- but before they can even begin to focus on the fixing of their friendship, strange things occur on the island, and they are witness to things they aren’t sure they should believe in, until they must ask themselves if they can fix their breaking promise because, without it, the flowered hearts are at risk of breaking next.
ABOUT
Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence is a YA magical realism drama with a hint of mystery fictional novel for fans of Studio Ghibli and genuine friendships with a group of diverse characters who are POC on a search for a new orphanage. Throughout the book, they cope with stressful situations despite their shortcomings yet they still manage to rely on each other on this epic adventure.
Even though this is targeted at YA I would say the story is somewhere between middle grade and young adult. I feel like the charaters and the overall aesthetic of the novel are more middle-grade level but there are some dark topics and depictions of violence so for that I would mark it up to a more mature audience.
The overall message was friendship which I appreciate. I love reading books about friendships as I feel like there aren’t as many books about this topic as I wish there were. The fact, that their kids are orphans but still manage to come together because of their differences and create their own little family is really wholesome. They face a lot of hardships but even through the toughest of circumstances they manage to lean on each other and rely on the power of their friendship. It sounds corny the way I’m describing it but don’t we all want relationships like that? Haha
WHAT I LOVED
I’ll start by mentioning what I love about Kodomo Doki Doki. I love the friendship element! It gave me strong My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic vibes. Though the main characters are orphans they’ve managed to create their own little family and it was sweet to see how the characters take care of one another and stick up for each other, especially in younger friendship groups.
I also enjoyed reading about the Florals (a type of species that emits floral plants from their bodies). The Floral element reminded me of the dragons in The Tea Dragon Society graphic novels but with people instead of dragons. I would’ve loved to read more about the Florals, it is mentioned a couple of times throughout the book but I wished there was more.
There are a few characters who have autism, Chul Moo’s autism plays a significant role throughout the book. It was interesting to read about someone (though fictional) who lives with autism how they react to stressful situations, and how his friends handle his outbursts. I can tell that the author has a lot of knowledge about this subject because of the way they wrote about the neurodevelopmental disorder. Another main character is diabetic and whilst it isn’t a major issue there is a part in the story where she has to manage diabetes in a public setting. Both autism and diabetes are very real everyday problems that millions of people go through so it was nice to see this represented in a magical novel.
A character that stood out to me was Elleph, he gave me anti-hero energy. The main group of friends don’t trust him because he teases them often but throughout the book, you can tell that he tries very hard to get comfortable with them probably because his older brother, Diamond causes a lot of trouble for them and I felt like he tried to be a good person because of it. I also ship him with Frithie! Elleph gave me the impression that he had a crush on Frithie as he would call her cute nicknames which I found endearing. However, I don’t think Frithie feels the same way but I feel like they could have a cute enemy-to-lovers type of relationship! Hehe
Kodomo Doki Doki takes place in Japan so there are a lot of nods to kawaii Japanese culture which was fun to read about as someone who enjoys these types of things! The main group of charaters have impeccable style inspired by popular Japanese fashions like Lolita, fairykei, and anything you could imagine seeing down on Harajuku! I also loved the part where Frithie crocheted! I was actually inspired to crochet the Kindle cozy you see in the pictures!
WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE
The major problem I had with this book was the writing. I get this might be the author’s writing style so I won’t fret too much about this issue. If you enjoy poetic writing or prose that’s very descriptive and beautiful then you might be okay with this writing style but I found it slightly confusing and took me away during slower parts of the story. I think this novel is best read at a slow pace where you can indulge in every detail.
There are a lot of charaters! There are only two main charaters but a lot of background characters. Again, this may be a personal preference thing but when there are multiple characters in a book it can be a bit difficult to remember who was saying what. Plus, I felt like I didn’t get to know each character as much as I would’ve liked. There were also a few times throughout the book where some characters go by different names which became even more confusing.
OTHER THINGS TO NOTE
There was a lot of violence! I didn’t expect there to be much talk about blood and violence. You would think about the cover art and brief book summary that this wouldn’t be a happy magical book about fairies and flowers but there was a lot of description of physical violence which is why this is probably marked for a mature audience. There is a trigger warning in the actual copy of the book but I got an ARC so it didn’t have the warning. I thought I would mention this just in case some of you are triggered by things like violence.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
If you were at all intrigued by anything that I mentioned about Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence then please go and purchase a copy and give it a read! This is just the beginning of Renaya’s career as an author and I want to encourage her to continue writing as she has such creative ideas! This is only book one (I believe she is currently working on book two!) so if you do enjoy her debut book stay tuned for more books from her in the future!
I want to thank Renaya for choosing me to review Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence. I loved being immersed in your world and cannot wait to see what you come up with next!
Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence will be released on May 31st with new cover art!
You can preorder Kodomo Doki Doki Book One: Touch Reminiscence here
Will you be picking up a copy of this book?
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