Yoshimi and the Shadow Clan

Yoshimi and the Shadow Clan
by Tony Laplume
(4/5 stars)

My assumption is this has less to do with the Flaming Lips album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" and more with old kung-fu movies and modern updates like "Kill Bill."  There is a girl named Yoshimi who has to train in martial arts, but sadly pink robots are sorely lacking...for now. 

In the meantime, the orphaned Yoshimi trains by escaping 36 different foster families until at 15 she's finally released into the world.  Her first stop is at the Peers academy, where she gets a book and a sword and gets some vague preparation for a battle against the evildoer who killed her parents.  First she has to take on the Shadow Clan led by a guy named Bill, which seems an obvious "Kill Bill" reference despite that I haven't actually watched most of those movies as I have yet to embrace the genius of Quentin Tarantino.

Most of the book is entertaining enough and it's fairly short so it doesn't take a long time to read.  I would have preferred a little more detail in the beginning about the foster families and at the end after Yoshimi's confrontation with Bill it might have been nice for things to slow down a little to get more detail about her travels.

There is a decent promise of more to come, though perhaps pink robots are not in the offing.  Dang it.

That is all.