Review of “Spice & Wolf Volume 2” by Isuna Hasekura
Buy it here: Amazon
(Volume 1: Amazon
Check here for a Braille version: https://ko-fi.com/braille
It had been years since I read volume one, so I didn’t remember everything, but I was able to hop into this book without trouble. It has a few references to things that happened in the first volume, but beyond that it’s not necessary to know much beyond who the characters basically are.
This volume started off slow in the first couple of chapters. Something I noticed early on was a pattern: character says something, followed by a paragraph thoroughly explaining the thing the character just said. It felt like this happened constantly in the beginning and it made the story drag. I give a fair amount of leeway at the beginning of books. I understand they need to set up the world and what’s going on, so to some extent you can’t avoid little information drops, but it did happen enough that I was noticing the characters couldn’t have a conversation without info-dumping between everything they said.
So I waited for a bit for the book to pick up.
The plot really starts with the Latparron Trading Company. Lawrence is trading with the master, and they’re weighing his pepper on the master’s scale. He’s convinced that the scale is legitimate, but then Holo fakes feeling ill and knocks the table off balance. Despite the table being tilted, it doesn’t mess up the scale.
Having caught the master trying to cheat him, Lawrence uses this as blackmail. He ends up buying a large amount of armor on credit to sell it in the next town, where he’ll not only pay the credit back but he’ll earn a good profit.
On the way to the next city they run into a shepherdess. Holo doesn’t like shepherds because they protect the sheep from the wolves. It’s also very rare for a shepherdess to be a woman. Lawrence is fascinated by this, and when the shepherdess – Norah – offers to guide them and protect them from wolves he takes her up on the offer. As it turns out, she’s trying to save up to be able to become a dressmaker. She works for the Church and that basically gives her just enough to stay alive.
Though she doesn’t say it herself, Lawrence suspects she’s also ill-treated because the Church would be suspicious of her as both a woman and a skilled shepherdess who could keep the sheep safe from wolves so well.
When they get to the Remelio Trading Company in Ruvinheigen they run into disaster. As it turns out, the price in weapons and armors has plummeted suddenly. The stock Lawrence bought on credit is worthless, and now he owes a massive debt to the Remelio Trading Company, who can straight up take everything he has, including the teeth from his head, and sell him off as a slave to try and pay off the debt. The Remelio Trading Company took a massive hit from the unexpected plummet in the price and is desperate to find any way to pay off the debt.
This is where the book picks up quite a bit as it gets into its plot. He and Holo come up with a scheme to earn the money fast by smuggling gold into the city, though if they get caught there will be hell to pay. Gold in the city is very strictly regulated and therefore can earn a lot of money, but smuggling gold in would be an affront to the Church itself.
Lawrence convinces Norah to help them. By getting the sheep to eat up gold, she can smuggle it into the city and then they could have the sheep butchered. With the backing of the Remelio Trading Company in the plot, they can use what little assets they have left to purchase the gold. All they have to do is get to Lamtra through a dangerous, wolf-infested forest and get the sheep back safely.
There are more twists but I won’t describe them all. Once it gets into the plot for the book it really picks up and becomes a lot of fun. Norah is a good character and a nice addition, though I don’t know if she’ll appear again in the next volumes. The plot is a solid enough one and not hard to follow, and I was interested to see how they would manage to carry it out.
There were some things in the book that were never explained even though they were set-up. For example, on the way to Lamtra they have a spooky encounter. Holo almost seems to insinuate it might be something like a ghost, because the thing bothering them isn’t making any noise. They emphasize how strange it would be for it to be wolves when they aren’t howling – then it is wolves and they don’t explain why they didn’t howl, even after all the set-up with it.
Some of the dialogue between Lawrence and Holo can get a little melodramatic. I think it’s also partially the difference in languages and cultures. They’ll be more vague and beat around the bush sometimes, to the point that sometimes it’ll be hard to tell why one is offended.
I think the last back and forth between Lawrence and Holo is the best one. Good comedy needs good timing, and that can be tricky with translations, but their last argument hit the mark and was a good way to wrap up the book.
Overall, it was an enjoyable volume. I hope Norah does show up again in the future, though I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t. Anyone who enjoyed the first book will probably enjoy this one as well and I think it’s a solid addition to the story.
Next time it’ll be “Spice & Wolf: Volume 3” by Isuna Hasekura. Here are the links!
Braille: https://ko-fi.com/braille
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