Wherein Xingquin, the daughter of the Moon Goddess, makes hard choices, pisses off a lot of monarchs, and burns down a lot of stuff.
I liked the actioWherein Xingquin, the daughter of the Moon Goddess, makes hard choices, pisses off a lot of monarchs, and burns down a lot of stuff.
I liked the action scenes a lot. Xingquin is a serious badass and while I'm not sure how she got that badass in that short of time, I do appreciate it.
But I'm baffled how she basically spends her time propping up an unjust system - a system that has brutalized her and her family -- or fretting over the fact that two immortal princes are madly in love with her. One seriously betrayed her trust. The other one has parents who hate her.
The book reads easy. Would have made a good bus book. But it could have been more.
Tells the story of how Xingyin, the daughter of the moon goddess Chang'e, saves her mother from painful isolation and the Celestial Kingdom from demonTells the story of how Xingyin, the daughter of the moon goddess Chang'e, saves her mother from painful isolation and the Celestial Kingdom from demons.
The prose is good; the fight scenes fun; and the world building has dragons in it. Full marks for that.
I don't know enough Chinese mythology to judge, but Xingyin felt very much like a Mary Sue to me. She is smart and good and bullied by all the bad people and loved by all the good people and the odd supervillain and she is the best there ever was at everything she sets her hand to.
Maybe it's just the time of my life, though, but the cartoonishly evil Emperor and Empress turned me off. Especially given the fact their son, Lewei, is just so gosh darn good and kind. If he's really so good, she should be making sure his parents retire to a farm upstate.
I was getting vexed with the love triangle -- seriously, why are all these powerful men in love with this teenager? -- but I really liked how it resolved itself.
A lovely fairy tale about a girl who volunteers to be sacrificed to the sea god to save her brother the misery of losing his beloved and ends up savinA lovely fairy tale about a girl who volunteers to be sacrificed to the sea god to save her brother the misery of losing his beloved and ends up saving both her community and the underworld from devastation. She's brave and smart and listens to her friends. It suffers from that fairy tale problem of trying to conform people to their roles but does it with just enough transgressiveness to make me happy. ...more
Loading...
