What do you think?
Rate this book
Song of the Last Kingdom #1
Пісня срібла, полум'я мов ніч
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2023)Колись Лань мала інше ім’я. Але після вторгнення елантійських колонізаторів, які вбили її матір і заборонили магію її народу, вона носить чуже та живе подвійним життям: удень нишпорить у міських нетрях у пошуках артефактів минулого, а вночі працює співачкою в чайному домі.
Єдине, що лишилося дівчині від колишнього життя — загадковий знак на руці, якого ніхто, крім самої Лань, не бачить. Аж поки не з’являється Цзень — практик із легендарного Останнього Королівства, носій забороненої сили.
Цзень розпізнає, що Лань наділена незвичайними здібностями. Він ніколи не стикався із чимось подібним, і єдине місце, де можна сподіватися на допомогу — старовинна школа практиків, схована далеко серед соснових лісів у туманних горах, що єдина збереглася після завоювання.
Лань і Цзень оповиті таємницями, і тими, які старанно приховують від інших, і тими, які тільки-но мають відкрити про самих себе. Випадок звів їх разом, але їхня доля ще не визначена. Бо кожен носить у собі силу, здатну як звільнити рідну землю… так і знищити весь світ.
Єдине, що лишилося дівчині від колишнього життя — загадковий знак на руці, якого ніхто, крім самої Лань, не бачить. Аж поки не з’являється Цзень — практик із легендарного Останнього Королівства, носій забороненої сили.
Цзень розпізнає, що Лань наділена незвичайними здібностями. Він ніколи не стикався із чимось подібним, і єдине місце, де можна сподіватися на допомогу — старовинна школа практиків, схована далеко серед соснових лісів у туманних горах, що єдина збереглася після завоювання.
Лань і Цзень оповиті таємницями, і тими, які старанно приховують від інших, і тими, які тільки-но мають відкрити про самих себе. Випадок звів їх разом, але їхня доля ще не визначена. Бо кожен носить у собі силу, здатну як звільнити рідну землю… так і знищити весь світ.
560 pages, Hardcover
First published January 3, 2023
1298 people are currently reading
112115 people want to read
About the author
Amélie Wen Zhao
12 books3,425 followersAmélie Wen Zhao（赵雯）was born in Paris and grew up in Beijing, where she spent her days reenacting tales of legendary heroes, ancient kingdoms, and lost magic at her grandmother’s courtyard house. She attended college in the United States and now resides in New York City, working as a finance professional by day and fantasy author by night. In her spare time, she loves to travel with her family in China, where she’s determined to walk the rivers and lakes of old just like the practitioners in her novels do.
Amélie is the author of the Blood Heir trilogy and the upcoming Song of Silver, Flame Like Night duology.
Amélie is the author of the Blood Heir trilogy and the upcoming Song of Silver, Flame Like Night duology.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,310 reviews
October 21, 2022
I wrote this! If you want a book of my heart and soul, one that is so deeply steeped in my language, culture, and history and draws on the magic of Chinese wuxia/xianxia that I grew up with, here it is. <3
November 1, 2022
absolutely magical in every way possible.
AWZ has masterfully crafted a story that is powerful, writing that is lyrical, a plot that is adventurous, and characters that are heartfelt. im obsessed with the vivid mythology and tangible soul of this story. there is not one aspect of this book that is lacking.
AWZ has already written a pretty successful series before, but i have a feeling this is going to be the book/series will make her a well-known author. and she deserves every second of attention and praise she gets for this.
my profound thanks to random house/delacorte press for the ARC!
↠ 5 stars
AWZ has masterfully crafted a story that is powerful, writing that is lyrical, a plot that is adventurous, and characters that are heartfelt. im obsessed with the vivid mythology and tangible soul of this story. there is not one aspect of this book that is lacking.
AWZ has already written a pretty successful series before, but i have a feeling this is going to be the book/series will make her a well-known author. and she deserves every second of attention and praise she gets for this.
my profound thanks to random house/delacorte press for the ARC!
↠ 5 stars
July 4, 2025
This is a fabulous start to a brand new fantasy series! The incorporation of Chinese folklore about demon creatures, the qi-based magical system, the action-packed, heart-throbbing, riveting chapters, the execution of the big mystery, and the well-crafted characterization make you addicted to this book! You don’t want to put it down, but at the same time, you curse yourself for finishing it quickly because you don’t want it to end so soon!
The themes of colonialism, cultural assimilation, and Chinese mythology are seamlessly blended!
Lan is a truly complex character: a scrap of an orphan begging on the streets of Haakgong. Old Wei, a mysterious merchant selling contraband in his store, takes her to the only place he knows that would welcome a girl with no name and no reputation: Madam Meng’s Teahouse. She signs a contract whose terms she can barely decipher and whose length seems to swell the harder she works. She becomes a song girl!
Once upon a time, she had a different name and a different life purpose she cannot remember! Elantian colonizers invaded her kingdom and killed her mother. The only thing left to her from her deceased mother is a burn mark on her arm: a mysterious, untranslatable Hin character. Finding the true meaning of the mark may help her remember her true purpose, saving her from this miserable, trapped life!
Zen is a practitioner, one of the fabled magicians of the kingdom, who follows the traces of demonic magic. When he meets Lan, he recognizes the mark on her arm. He realizes she has no idea how powerful she is. She can serve for the survival of the kingdom, but if she cannot control her power, she can turn into a very dangerous enemy.
They have to team up to overthrow the Elantian regime, but their mission might be more excruciating than they imagine!
The love story between Lan and Zen is poignant. The world-building and the riveting pacing are as great as the character development.
I honestly devoured this book and enjoyed it a lot! I cannot wait to read more! It absolutely deserves highly deserved, fine, shining, magical, epic, powerful stars!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
medium.com
instagram
facebook
twitter
The themes of colonialism, cultural assimilation, and Chinese mythology are seamlessly blended!
Lan is a truly complex character: a scrap of an orphan begging on the streets of Haakgong. Old Wei, a mysterious merchant selling contraband in his store, takes her to the only place he knows that would welcome a girl with no name and no reputation: Madam Meng’s Teahouse. She signs a contract whose terms she can barely decipher and whose length seems to swell the harder she works. She becomes a song girl!
Once upon a time, she had a different name and a different life purpose she cannot remember! Elantian colonizers invaded her kingdom and killed her mother. The only thing left to her from her deceased mother is a burn mark on her arm: a mysterious, untranslatable Hin character. Finding the true meaning of the mark may help her remember her true purpose, saving her from this miserable, trapped life!
Zen is a practitioner, one of the fabled magicians of the kingdom, who follows the traces of demonic magic. When he meets Lan, he recognizes the mark on her arm. He realizes she has no idea how powerful she is. She can serve for the survival of the kingdom, but if she cannot control her power, she can turn into a very dangerous enemy.
They have to team up to overthrow the Elantian regime, but their mission might be more excruciating than they imagine!
The love story between Lan and Zen is poignant. The world-building and the riveting pacing are as great as the character development.
I honestly devoured this book and enjoyed it a lot! I cannot wait to read more! It absolutely deserves highly deserved, fine, shining, magical, epic, powerful stars!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
medium.com
February 7, 2024
Requesting NetGalley ARCs based on their covers has turned into such a wild game of bingo over the last few months. I’ve been rather unlucky with them, so the only question I now ask myself before diving into one is: “will this be moderately tolerable or bad enough for me to want to gouge my eyeballs out and feed them to the cat I don’t have?” As it stands, “Song of Silver, Flame Like Night” sits firmly between the two.
Listen, I requested this based on the cover and the cover alone. It’s STUNNING, I’m still eating it up. I did not pick this up because it was being compared to “The Poppy War” or because of the author’s Instagram marketing. However, had I known that THIS was being compared to the goddess’s R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, I might have just ended up rating this -1 star, who knows?
The thing is: the first chapter had me hooked all right. 20-year-old Lan works as a songgirl – a sex worker in anything but name – in a teahouse in Haak’gong, one of the kingdom’s biggest cities, which along with the rest of the country, has been under Elantian – foreign invaders from across the ocean – rule for 12 years. While she isn’t content with her life, she tries to make the best out of it, all the while always being on the lookout for information about her mother, who was brutally murdered when Lan was eight, and the mysterious scar on her arm which she has had ever since that horrible night.
Initial exposition: fine. Everything after chapter 1?? Not so fine. Here’s where the novel fell apart into tiny pieces because enter Zen, or as I like to call him: ✨info dump✨. The readers being as clueless as Lan about the secret art of practioning (she’s just so helpless and naïve, see), we need a strong manly man to help us understand what’s going on 🤧. Info dump will give you exactly that. Suddenly the whole concept of practioning, how yin and yang work, EVERYTHING needs to be explained in the first few chapters. I usually hate being spoon-fed, but in this case, I would have preferred it instead of having a whale-sized bucket of information dumped out over my head. Spoon-feeding it is!!!!! 🥄🥣
Let’s now take a look at our two main protagonists who are your usual run-of-the-mill ✨“speshuuuul”✨ girl and a dark, handsome boy 🥵. If it wasn’t 9.30 am right now, I’d deliver my usual hate-filled tired reader monologue™ of how originality in YA novels is dead and how somewhere there seems to be a hidden factory all YA authors have access to, producing the exact same type of male love interest on a conveyor line that is then shipped off to and put into every book published nowadays, BUT it IS 9.30 in the morning, so I’ll restrict myself to giving you the basic rundown of “info dump” and “speshuul girl” because you should know what you’re getting yourself into:
Lan, aka “our speshuuul” girl, is NOT PRETTY! 😔😔 She is too scrawny, the Teahouse’s Madam took one look at her and “declared that she wouldn’t be wasting any fine cloth on a ‘curbside fox.’” She is just different from the other songgirls – she knows she isn’t as pretty!!
Idk why we keep on continuing with this trend, but it needs to fucking die. I swear, the only reason female main characters are never explicitly written as beautiful is not to alienate the “glasses-wearing, nerdy, lowkey ugly, not-very-special” female readers who “see themselves” in the MC. It’s 2023, get a fucking grip on yourself. We can handle beautiful main characters, no need to write them as “oh, but she wasn’t as pretty as the other girls” which is SO FUNNY because even though the author tries so hard telling us how Lan isn’t conventionally attractive, every man she meets tells her she is! Within the first few chapters, there are 3!! Elantian men saying how pretty she is, immediately proceeding to want to r*pe her. Women aren’t even safe in fictional spaces, I love it here. 🫡
Anyway, after complicatedly telling us that Lan isn’t pretty but she is (if she weren’t, the male MC wouldn’t immediately be attracted to and mesmerised by her), she meets Zen when she “catch[es] sight of someone tall, someone dark, before she crashe[s] headfirst into that someone. (…) “Forgiveness.” A black-gloved hand darted to her waist to steady her, the other catching the edge of her tray (…) “I didn’t mean to startle you.” A voice, lovely and deep as velvet midnight (…)”
Forgive ME but I thought we had left that shit in our Wattpad phases, how you are still putting it in books to this day, make it make sense?? 😭😭 The only thing missing was for Lan to think she had run into a wall. 💀
If I didn’t know where this paragraph was from, I could easily mistake it for being from a Harry Styles/Reader fanfic in which reader is an unassuming, but pretty!! girl waiting a party to supplement her pocket money, only that the party she is waitressing at is hosted by Harry Styles, whom she promptly runs into because she is so clumsy, only for him to catch her at the waist, securing the tray with the cocktail glasses… Tell me I’m lying, the only thing missing is “ELLO LUV”. 😭💀
But Zen isn’t Harry Styles, instead, he is “the most startingly beautiful man Lan had ever set eyes on. A tangle of midnight hair, cropped short (…), spilled over a slim, chiseled face like ink on porcelain. Eyes the gray of smoke, framed by straight black brows, tilted with the slightest edge of insolence – a portrait completed by an insouciant curve of a mouth…”
…
…
Your honour, I rest my case.
As you can already tell from those two paragraphs: this novel’s prose is lyrical. I like my prose to be as nicely written and smooth-flowing as the next person, but it has to stop somewhere. The metaphors and similes have to make some sense for me to enjoy them.
“His eyes held a playfulness like a dusting of stars.”
Okay. 🫥
“Those eyes snapped across her like black lightning.”
I always thought it was called lightning because it’s a verbal noun from lightnen “make bright” but okay, black lightning it is.
“His gaze was as sharp as a black blade.”
Ah, I see, a black blade, because *thinks very hard for 2 seconds* a white blade isn’t as sharp as a black one, got it. 🫠
“He found her looking at him, gaze bright as black pebbles.”
Tell me I’m not the only one losing my marbles here??? No, wait, I think I got it: the trick is to take one adjective that has to do either with “brightness” or “darkness” + a noun that is inherently aesthetic like “blade” or… “pebbles”??
“Something cut through the air with the swiftness and sharpness of a blade. Zen moved in a kiss of metal (…)”
I, too, want to be kissed by a blade if only for these quotes to stop tormenting me. 😪
…
And one of my favourites out of all those:
“If you’re not with me, then you are against me.”
Okay, Anakin Skywalker dupe. 🙄 I have since learned that that line is actually from the Bible originally which makes it so much funnier.
All in all, there was nothing in this novel that either held my attention or was able to excite me. I didn’t care for the one-dimensional characters, the world-building sucked because we got so little of it except for the art of practioning and the Elantians’ use of metal magic which some reviewers have noted seems like a rip-off of Sanderson’s The Final Empire series. I fell asleep over this one too many times to rate this any higher. Not that the book was offensive, but I was BORED. I was APPALLED by the tropes used, weirdly bemused by the comical writing, and left indifferent by the novel’s plot twists and character deaths.
PASS.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Original review: The Poppy War ran so this could… crawl??
Listen, I requested this based on the cover and the cover alone. It’s STUNNING, I’m still eating it up. I did not pick this up because it was being compared to “The Poppy War” or because of the author’s Instagram marketing. However, had I known that THIS was being compared to the goddess’s R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, I might have just ended up rating this -1 star, who knows?
The thing is: the first chapter had me hooked all right. 20-year-old Lan works as a songgirl – a sex worker in anything but name – in a teahouse in Haak’gong, one of the kingdom’s biggest cities, which along with the rest of the country, has been under Elantian – foreign invaders from across the ocean – rule for 12 years. While she isn’t content with her life, she tries to make the best out of it, all the while always being on the lookout for information about her mother, who was brutally murdered when Lan was eight, and the mysterious scar on her arm which she has had ever since that horrible night.
Initial exposition: fine. Everything after chapter 1?? Not so fine. Here’s where the novel fell apart into tiny pieces because enter Zen, or as I like to call him: ✨info dump✨. The readers being as clueless as Lan about the secret art of practioning (she’s just so helpless and naïve, see), we need a strong manly man to help us understand what’s going on 🤧. Info dump will give you exactly that. Suddenly the whole concept of practioning, how yin and yang work, EVERYTHING needs to be explained in the first few chapters. I usually hate being spoon-fed, but in this case, I would have preferred it instead of having a whale-sized bucket of information dumped out over my head. Spoon-feeding it is!!!!! 🥄🥣
Let’s now take a look at our two main protagonists who are your usual run-of-the-mill ✨“speshuuuul”✨ girl and a dark, handsome boy 🥵. If it wasn’t 9.30 am right now, I’d deliver my usual hate-filled tired reader monologue™ of how originality in YA novels is dead and how somewhere there seems to be a hidden factory all YA authors have access to, producing the exact same type of male love interest on a conveyor line that is then shipped off to and put into every book published nowadays, BUT it IS 9.30 in the morning, so I’ll restrict myself to giving you the basic rundown of “info dump” and “speshuul girl” because you should know what you’re getting yourself into:
Lan, aka “our speshuuul” girl, is NOT PRETTY! 😔😔 She is too scrawny, the Teahouse’s Madam took one look at her and “declared that she wouldn’t be wasting any fine cloth on a ‘curbside fox.’” She is just different from the other songgirls – she knows she isn’t as pretty!!
Idk why we keep on continuing with this trend, but it needs to fucking die. I swear, the only reason female main characters are never explicitly written as beautiful is not to alienate the “glasses-wearing, nerdy, lowkey ugly, not-very-special” female readers who “see themselves” in the MC. It’s 2023, get a fucking grip on yourself. We can handle beautiful main characters, no need to write them as “oh, but she wasn’t as pretty as the other girls” which is SO FUNNY because even though the author tries so hard telling us how Lan isn’t conventionally attractive, every man she meets tells her she is! Within the first few chapters, there are 3!! Elantian men saying how pretty she is, immediately proceeding to want to r*pe her. Women aren’t even safe in fictional spaces, I love it here. 🫡
Anyway, after complicatedly telling us that Lan isn’t pretty but she is (if she weren’t, the male MC wouldn’t immediately be attracted to and mesmerised by her), she meets Zen when she “catch[es] sight of someone tall, someone dark, before she crashe[s] headfirst into that someone. (…) “Forgiveness.” A black-gloved hand darted to her waist to steady her, the other catching the edge of her tray (…) “I didn’t mean to startle you.” A voice, lovely and deep as velvet midnight (…)”
Forgive ME but I thought we had left that shit in our Wattpad phases, how you are still putting it in books to this day, make it make sense?? 😭😭 The only thing missing was for Lan to think she had run into a wall. 💀
If I didn’t know where this paragraph was from, I could easily mistake it for being from a Harry Styles/Reader fanfic in which reader is an unassuming, but pretty!! girl waiting a party to supplement her pocket money, only that the party she is waitressing at is hosted by Harry Styles, whom she promptly runs into because she is so clumsy, only for him to catch her at the waist, securing the tray with the cocktail glasses… Tell me I’m lying, the only thing missing is “ELLO LUV”. 😭💀
But Zen isn’t Harry Styles, instead, he is “the most startingly beautiful man Lan had ever set eyes on. A tangle of midnight hair, cropped short (…), spilled over a slim, chiseled face like ink on porcelain. Eyes the gray of smoke, framed by straight black brows, tilted with the slightest edge of insolence – a portrait completed by an insouciant curve of a mouth…”
…
…
Your honour, I rest my case.
As you can already tell from those two paragraphs: this novel’s prose is lyrical. I like my prose to be as nicely written and smooth-flowing as the next person, but it has to stop somewhere. The metaphors and similes have to make some sense for me to enjoy them.
“His eyes held a playfulness like a dusting of stars.”
Okay. 🫥
“Those eyes snapped across her like black lightning.”
I always thought it was called lightning because it’s a verbal noun from lightnen “make bright” but okay, black lightning it is.
“His gaze was as sharp as a black blade.”
Ah, I see, a black blade, because *thinks very hard for 2 seconds* a white blade isn’t as sharp as a black one, got it. 🫠
“He found her looking at him, gaze bright as black pebbles.”
Tell me I’m not the only one losing my marbles here??? No, wait, I think I got it: the trick is to take one adjective that has to do either with “brightness” or “darkness” + a noun that is inherently aesthetic like “blade” or… “pebbles”??
“Something cut through the air with the swiftness and sharpness of a blade. Zen moved in a kiss of metal (…)”
I, too, want to be kissed by a blade if only for these quotes to stop tormenting me. 😪
…
And one of my favourites out of all those:
“If you’re not with me, then you are against me.”
All in all, there was nothing in this novel that either held my attention or was able to excite me. I didn’t care for the one-dimensional characters, the world-building sucked because we got so little of it except for the art of practioning and the Elantians’ use of metal magic which some reviewers have noted seems like a rip-off of Sanderson’s The Final Empire series. I fell asleep over this one too many times to rate this any higher. Not that the book was offensive, but I was BORED. I was APPALLED by the tropes used, weirdly bemused by the comical writing, and left indifferent by the novel’s plot twists and character deaths.
PASS.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Original review: The Poppy War ran so this could… crawl??
December 24, 2022
pre-read: some would say that i would do anything for a pretty cover. some are correct.
______
3.7, maybe 3.8 stars. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC! in arc fashion, here’s a few of my pros and cons (except this time, i can’t decide if ANYTHING in this book is a pro or a con):
(?) lan. she’s definitely…. an acquired taste. i can see a lot of readers liking her, but also a lot of readers hating her (let’s just say she doesn’t make the best decisions with the brain that she has). she grows on you, though, and i ended up liking her by the final chapters.
(+) zen. spoke like a robot half the time, but i liked what he brought to the story. does he need to be professionally seen by a therapist? yes. yes he does.
(?) the plot. girl must save universe but has no idea how to wield the crazy power she has. i never know how to feel about these plots. yes, they tend to be solid outlines, but they also tend to be mediocre and/or forgettable books. because i enjoyed the author‘s previous trilogy so much, i had faith that the end would pick up. (+) what i DID like was that there were more than the two “good” and “bad” sides. oh, and the plot absolutely picks up around 80%. which leads me to…
(-) pacing. this was totally written as a “first book in the series”. which it is, and i appreciate that the story was thought out and sectioned into different books, but the entire book felt like exposition! yes, i now want to know what’ll happen in book two, but at what cost 💔
__
recommend: hm. yes, if you don’t mind reading a book just to get to the end.
__
⚠️⚠️SEMI-SPOILER, but I just HAVE to mention it:
this story HAD to have been written while the author was watching the star wars prequels. “if you are not with me, then you are against me”? lan literally has to bring balance to the force? and anakin skywalker himself wrote chapter 27.
______
3.7, maybe 3.8 stars. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC! in arc fashion, here’s a few of my pros and cons (except this time, i can’t decide if ANYTHING in this book is a pro or a con):
(?) lan. she’s definitely…. an acquired taste. i can see a lot of readers liking her, but also a lot of readers hating her (let’s just say she doesn’t make the best decisions with the brain that she has). she grows on you, though, and i ended up liking her by the final chapters.
(+) zen. spoke like a robot half the time, but i liked what he brought to the story. does he need to be professionally seen by a therapist? yes. yes he does.
(?) the plot. girl must save universe but has no idea how to wield the crazy power she has. i never know how to feel about these plots. yes, they tend to be solid outlines, but they also tend to be mediocre and/or forgettable books. because i enjoyed the author‘s previous trilogy so much, i had faith that the end would pick up. (+) what i DID like was that there were more than the two “good” and “bad” sides. oh, and the plot absolutely picks up around 80%. which leads me to…
(-) pacing. this was totally written as a “first book in the series”. which it is, and i appreciate that the story was thought out and sectioned into different books, but the entire book felt like exposition! yes, i now want to know what’ll happen in book two, but at what cost 💔
__
recommend: hm. yes, if you don’t mind reading a book just to get to the end.
__
⚠️⚠️SEMI-SPOILER, but I just HAVE to mention it:
this story HAD to have been written while the author was watching the star wars prequels. “if you are not with me, then you are against me”? lan literally has to bring balance to the force? and anakin skywalker himself wrote chapter 27.
May 10, 2023
Lan is a song girl in a city overrun by Elantian colonizers. All she has left of her mother is a strange mark on her arm that no one else can see but her. Until one evening, when she finds herself in a dangerous situation in the tea house, she is saved by a young boy who can also see the mark. Desperate for answers, Lan follows Zen and attempts to learn from him. Though they both have secrets, they seem connected by fate. What will it cost Lan to find the answers she seeks?
One of the biggest strengths of this work is the worldbuilding. The amount of time the author spent creating a compelling and immersive world is evident. From things as small to spices in food to as large as demon gods and cosmology, details were incorporated throughout the story to create a beautiful and engaging world. The characters were written well enough to not detract from the book although they were too archetypal/tropey for my liking (a special girl with unexplainable magic, a dark handsome dangerous boy, an aggressive by-the-books girl who hates the special girl, etc.). This story was told from both Lan's and Zen's POVs, which was well balanced and provided good insight. I disliked the romance though as there was no palpable chemistry between the characters involved.
One of my biggest dislikes in this work is related to the worldbuilding. The author relied on info dumping throughout to provide the readers with enough background information to make the plot and characters' actions understandable. Due to how expansive the world of this book is and how much depth the author included, the information provided was certainly necessary. But knowing this still didn't make the paragraphs of background information that constantly interrupted the plot/dialogue any more enjoyable. I also would have preferred if the colonization aspect of the work was less heavy handed and took up less page time. I know it made up much of the main conflicts in this work, but I've read other books where it's included in a compelling way without being spelled out so repeatedly and obviously.
There was also a great deal of repetition throughout the work, especially related to explaining things. Something would be referenced and an explanation given, then a few pages later when it was referenced again, the author included the whole initial explanation again. Between this and the info-dumping, this book was sometimes difficult to be excited to read.
All of that being said, I did enjoy this work of fantasy overall and will likely read the next book. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
One of the biggest strengths of this work is the worldbuilding. The amount of time the author spent creating a compelling and immersive world is evident. From things as small to spices in food to as large as demon gods and cosmology, details were incorporated throughout the story to create a beautiful and engaging world. The characters were written well enough to not detract from the book although they were too archetypal/tropey for my liking (a special girl with unexplainable magic, a dark handsome dangerous boy, an aggressive by-the-books girl who hates the special girl, etc.). This story was told from both Lan's and Zen's POVs, which was well balanced and provided good insight. I disliked the romance though as there was no palpable chemistry between the characters involved.
One of my biggest dislikes in this work is related to the worldbuilding. The author relied on info dumping throughout to provide the readers with enough background information to make the plot and characters' actions understandable. Due to how expansive the world of this book is and how much depth the author included, the information provided was certainly necessary. But knowing this still didn't make the paragraphs of background information that constantly interrupted the plot/dialogue any more enjoyable. I also would have preferred if the colonization aspect of the work was less heavy handed and took up less page time. I know it made up much of the main conflicts in this work, but I've read other books where it's included in a compelling way without being spelled out so repeatedly and obviously.
There was also a great deal of repetition throughout the work, especially related to explaining things. Something would be referenced and an explanation given, then a few pages later when it was referenced again, the author included the whole initial explanation again. Between this and the info-dumping, this book was sometimes difficult to be excited to read.
All of that being said, I did enjoy this work of fantasy overall and will likely read the next book. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
October 1, 2025
what do i have to do to get a decent xianxia-inspired fantasy around here 😭
let’s start small: diacritics, my beloathed. i abhor the sight of you, and i truly do not understand why anglophone authors insist on shoving you in every single fucking chinese word possible. is it to ensure us readers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s a chinese word? because apparently we don’t have enough context to figure it out by ourselves? it doesn’t even help with anything beyond pronunciation—chinese-speaking readers won’t know what word it is just based on the pinyin, and it’d be useless to other readers, who won’t even understand the difference diacritics make to the pronunciation.
beyond that, it’s a mystery as to what language awz is writing in half the time? 黑港 haak’gong is very clearly cantonese (and probably an allusion to 香港 hong kong), and that is pretty much the only chinese word without diacritics—with some exceptions; i’ll get to them later. but then we have this guy called zhào jùng, which is apparently supposed to be mandarin, except it can’t be because jùng isn’t a sound that exists in mandarin at all. neither is chó, and yet chó yún is another (supposedly!) mandarin name in awz’s universe. awz also can’t seem to decide what to do with her diacritics? ‘pipa’ doesn’t use any tone marks, but ‘dǒu’lì’, very easily translated to ‘bamboo hat’ (which awz proceeds to do literally one word later), does. if you’re going to torture me with these ugly markings, please at least be consistent.
(i say ‘supposedly’ because, to my knowledge, mandarin is the only sinitic language to use diacritic tone marks, and the only clearly cantonese word in the novel doesn’t use them.)
speaking of names, i don’t really understand what the point of having all the hin/mansorian names be shortened to monosyllabic characters was? i’m pretty sure that wasn’t a thing when westerners came to colonise china. (i could be wrong, i’m not particularly well-versed in that area of history.) maybe it was just so that awz could use the name zen, which i’ve definitely seen used for a significant majority of east asian characters growing up. at least he’s mongolian, not japanese, but his name sure didn’t make me any less leery of reading this book.
now, on to the things that actually made me decide to dnf!
first, the elantians. i’m 99% sure they’re basically just meant to be some amalgamation of a bunch of european nations, which is personally not a creative choice i can get behind. their names are basically just randomised results for european names, and based on the pattern awz has set up here (hin = han, mansorian = mongolian), ‘elantian’ is pretty clearly meant to evoke ‘european’. logistically, that makes no sense—there’s no way in hell you expect me to believe the entire continent is one empire—but that also brings up some pretty uncomfortable parallels to the way westerners view asia and africa for me.
i took issue with the way the “magic system” is written too. according to awz, this novel is based on wuxia and xianxia, which i can definitely see. the problem here is that xianxia is steeped in daoism, a real-life religion that is still practiced today, and awz makes some pretty disturbing choices in her portrayal of daoist cultivation. yes, it’s cultivation, i’m not sure why she chose to call it ‘practitioning’. i’m not daoist myself, so i’m sure there are things i’m missing, but here’s what i noticed:
anyway, this is yet again another chinese-inspired fantasy targeted towards western audiences unfamiliar with wuxia/xianxia, because most of the ‘practitioning’ (which i presume is the ‘unique magic system’ so many reviews praise) is taken directly from wuxia/xianxia. there were some things i did like—some lines read like literal translations of chinese (‘walking the rivers and lakes’, ‘silver-bells voice’, etc)—but overall, i’d rather spend my time reading actual wuxia/xianxia novels.
➳ 1.5 stars
✧─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: .✦ . :★. ───✧
pre-reading
the title translation is pretty cool but why does the chinese title feel like an afterthought (edit: in terms of cover design) :(
also isn’t zen a japanese name lmao
let’s start small: diacritics, my beloathed. i abhor the sight of you, and i truly do not understand why anglophone authors insist on shoving you in every single fucking chinese word possible. is it to ensure us readers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s a chinese word? because apparently we don’t have enough context to figure it out by ourselves? it doesn’t even help with anything beyond pronunciation—chinese-speaking readers won’t know what word it is just based on the pinyin, and it’d be useless to other readers, who won’t even understand the difference diacritics make to the pronunciation.
beyond that, it’s a mystery as to what language awz is writing in half the time? 黑港 haak’gong is very clearly cantonese (and probably an allusion to 香港 hong kong), and that is pretty much the only chinese word without diacritics—with some exceptions; i’ll get to them later. but then we have this guy called zhào jùng, which is apparently supposed to be mandarin, except it can’t be because jùng isn’t a sound that exists in mandarin at all. neither is chó, and yet chó yún is another (supposedly!) mandarin name in awz’s universe. awz also can’t seem to decide what to do with her diacritics? ‘pipa’ doesn’t use any tone marks, but ‘dǒu’lì’, very easily translated to ‘bamboo hat’ (which awz proceeds to do literally one word later), does. if you’re going to torture me with these ugly markings, please at least be consistent.
(i say ‘supposedly’ because, to my knowledge, mandarin is the only sinitic language to use diacritic tone marks, and the only clearly cantonese word in the novel doesn’t use them.)
speaking of names, i don’t really understand what the point of having all the hin/mansorian names be shortened to monosyllabic characters was? i’m pretty sure that wasn’t a thing when westerners came to colonise china. (i could be wrong, i’m not particularly well-versed in that area of history.) maybe it was just so that awz could use the name zen, which i’ve definitely seen used for a significant majority of east asian characters growing up. at least he’s mongolian, not japanese, but his name sure didn’t make me any less leery of reading this book.
now, on to the things that actually made me decide to dnf!
first, the elantians. i’m 99% sure they’re basically just meant to be some amalgamation of a bunch of european nations, which is personally not a creative choice i can get behind. their names are basically just randomised results for european names, and based on the pattern awz has set up here (hin = han, mansorian = mongolian), ‘elantian’ is pretty clearly meant to evoke ‘european’. logistically, that makes no sense—there’s no way in hell you expect me to believe the entire continent is one empire—but that also brings up some pretty uncomfortable parallels to the way westerners view asia and africa for me.
i took issue with the way the “magic system” is written too. according to awz, this novel is based on wuxia and xianxia, which i can definitely see. the problem here is that xianxia is steeped in daoism, a real-life religion that is still practiced today, and awz makes some pretty disturbing choices in her portrayal of daoist cultivation. yes, it’s cultivation, i’m not sure why she chose to call it ‘practitioning’. i’m not daoist myself, so i’m sure there are things i’m missing, but here’s what i noticed:
1. awz calls the 四象 ‘the four demon gods’ in her novel. i didn’t finish it, but from what i read, her conception of ‘demon’ doesn’t appear to be any less negative than the general anglophone version. which i find weird since these mythical creatures aren’t actually evil. furthermore, she chose to swap the colours of the 白虎 / white tiger and the 青龙 / azure dragon for no apparent reason? idk that entire situation is just bizarre to me.
[edit: i just remembered the existence of the 四凶, which are the antagonistic counterparts to the 四象.]
2. i have a grudge against people calling daoist cultivation magic. it’s not magic. it’s religious in nature. please just stop.
3. awz translates 道 as the way, which is incorrect. 道 encompasses all the different ways of doing all the different things, but ‘the’ suggests that there is only one correct way. from the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy’s entry on daoism: “One is better advised to treat dao as a collective noun—as the part-whole sum of ways. What we think of as one way would be one part of dao.”
4. finally, awz’s version of demonic cultivation (魔修, i’m assuming) seems very westernised, which is something i’m very tired of seeing. she states that “demonic practitioning is only possible if you have made a bargain with a demon to borrow its power”, but in xianxia, demonic cultivators are powerful cultivators who go against the orthodox path, commit atrocities in the name of power, and/or cause grievous harm to others. i believe that succumbing to their obsessions/extreme emotions is another defining characteristic, but i could be wrong about that.
anyway, this is yet again another chinese-inspired fantasy targeted towards western audiences unfamiliar with wuxia/xianxia, because most of the ‘practitioning’ (which i presume is the ‘unique magic system’ so many reviews praise) is taken directly from wuxia/xianxia. there were some things i did like—some lines read like literal translations of chinese (‘walking the rivers and lakes’, ‘silver-bells voice’, etc)—but overall, i’d rather spend my time reading actual wuxia/xianxia novels.
➳ 1.5 stars
✧─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: .✦ . :★. ───✧
pre-reading
the title translation is pretty cool but why does the chinese title feel like an afterthought (edit: in terms of cover design) :(
also isn’t zen a japanese name lmao
August 3, 2025
I didn't grow up on Chinese mythology. This book was my first introduction to the Four Symbols/Guardians/Gods/Auspicious Beasts. I was told by CC to read JOURNEY TO THE WEST.
The first time around I found Lan's journey cute. Now I find her very annoying and stupid. Zen is less cute. Maybe because I knew what was coming. Hate that for me.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte Press
The first time around I found Lan's journey cute. Now I find her very annoying and stupid. Zen is less cute. Maybe because I knew what was coming. Hate that for me.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Delacorte Press
Currently reading
February 21, 2024I've been wanting to read this book for so long, I heard it gives C-drama vibes <3
Manifesting this as a 4 or 5 star read omg please I haven't had much luck 🥹🕯️
Manifesting this as a 4 or 5 star read omg please I haven't had much luck 🥹🕯️
May 2, 2024
Yeah this slump is slumping pretty bad
I can’t read because of my squirrel brain 😭 (and maybe a slump?😭 I haven’t had a 5⭐️ read in a month….)
So I’m trying my very first audiobook!!
Also, happy May everyone 💗 hope May brings only good reads to yous!!
I can’t read because of my squirrel brain 😭 (and maybe a slump?😭 I haven’t had a 5⭐️ read in a month….)
So I’m trying my very first audiobook!!
Also, happy May everyone 💗 hope May brings only good reads to yous!!
dnf
November 4, 2024DNF 50%
April 21, 2023
27/12/22: changed the rating into 1⭐️ bc I really am a hater of this book
17/12/22: This book is like Mistborn x The Poppy War but not in an enjoyable way. The way AWZ talks about this book is like chinese-inspired YA fantasies like TPW and Iron Widow never existed before and it irked me so much
(from the author's foreword)
"I’m tired of Chinese girls being portrayed as beautiful, fragile flowers. I want to be a blade. So in my book, I gave my girl magic—the power of shamans and prophetic lore and demon gods sings in her blood." Ok? Fang Runin said hello.
"Welcome to the Last Kingdom." The Final Empire??
The main characters, Lan & Zen, basically didn’t have a solid personality except being annoying (Lan) and stiff (Zen). I felt like witnessing interactions between a child and an adult even though their age difference wasn’t that big. Where’s the fierce badass female main character, the “blade” the author talked about? I didn’t see her
I'm also disappointed to see that this book is casually marketed as ✨️enemies AS lovers✨️ (go check AWZ's IG it's literally on all her posts) which took the element of surprise. I wouldn't suspect it otherwise. And when the moment came it wasn't grand or anything at all. Not that the "romance" was great either, TBH I didn't even feel their chemistry
I noticed that AWZ poured her heart so much into this book. Each word’s selected with care to make sure everything's perfect, to the point that it's overly written. The descriptions were excessive and made the plot dragging. Info dumping here and there. BUT SOMEHOW the magic systems were obscure. There's 2 kinds of magic: metal magic (that's why it reminded me of Mistborn) and practitioning magic. Until the last page I still don't understand how both of those magics work
In short, I don't like this book (actually an understatement). But there's SO MUCH positive 4-5⭐️ reviews out there so don't take my rant personally🙏🏼
17/12/22: This book is like Mistborn x The Poppy War but not in an enjoyable way. The way AWZ talks about this book is like chinese-inspired YA fantasies like TPW and Iron Widow never existed before and it irked me so much
(from the author's foreword)
"I’m tired of Chinese girls being portrayed as beautiful, fragile flowers. I want to be a blade. So in my book, I gave my girl magic—the power of shamans and prophetic lore and demon gods sings in her blood." Ok? Fang Runin said hello.
"Welcome to the Last Kingdom." The Final Empire??
The main characters, Lan & Zen, basically didn’t have a solid personality except being annoying (Lan) and stiff (Zen). I felt like witnessing interactions between a child and an adult even though their age difference wasn’t that big. Where’s the fierce badass female main character, the “blade” the author talked about? I didn’t see her
I'm also disappointed to see that this book is casually marketed as ✨️enemies AS lovers✨️ (go check AWZ's IG it's literally on all her posts) which took the element of surprise. I wouldn't suspect it otherwise. And when the moment came it wasn't grand or anything at all. Not that the "romance" was great either, TBH I didn't even feel their chemistry
I noticed that AWZ poured her heart so much into this book. Each word’s selected with care to make sure everything's perfect, to the point that it's overly written. The descriptions were excessive and made the plot dragging. Info dumping here and there. BUT SOMEHOW the magic systems were obscure. There's 2 kinds of magic: metal magic (that's why it reminded me of Mistborn) and practitioning magic. Until the last page I still don't understand how both of those magics work
In short, I don't like this book (actually an understatement). But there's SO MUCH positive 4-5⭐️ reviews out there so don't take my rant personally🙏🏼
Read
July 7, 2022A gloriously rendered tale of power and what we’ll do to protect. Zhao serves the action, stunning visuals, and philosophical underpinnings of the xianxia genre in high style. If you’re looking for more like The Untamed, this is it!
May 20, 2023
Many regards to Random House Children's for providing me with an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange of my honest review.
This book brought me onto a roller-coaster of emotions with a great start, a mediocre medium, and an excellant ending. I rarely change my rating as quickly as this: at the 50% mark, I was convinced that this was going to be a 2-star-read, but the last action sequence blew my mind, and now we're here, with a 3.75/5 rounded down (because the ending left me a little disappointed).
The book started out smoothly: we were introduced to our main characters, Lan and Zen, who I quickly fell in love with. I love their dynamic, and how they balance each other. The slowburn is exquisite, and I loved seeing how they came to trust and to lean on each other.
However, the middle bit of this book was incredibly tedious as the actions were quite repetitive. I honestly didn't know that this book is 500-page-long (which is a lot for a first book of a YA Fantasy series), and I think that a big chunk of it could have been cut off or condensed. Nevertheless, I was really getting into the tension around the 75% mark. Amélie Wen Zhao knew how to build up tension for an explosive final battle and I can appreciate that. I was on my toes, reading as if my life depended on it.
Pacing problems aside, what really prevents me from loving this book was its lack of uniqueness. At this point, every mythology-inspired book starts to read the same, because the authors would take the original myths and dress it up as worldbuilding with little to no change. I think that's why I tend to enjoy Adult Fantasy more, because the YA Fantasy genre lack the freshness I crave. The same can be said for the characters and the events: a lot of them falls into archetypes or clichés that I have seen again and again. For example, I wish the ending was a little different, more intense perhaps, because I feel like I have read this before in other books.
Bottom-line: I didn't plan to read the sequel, but the last 80 pages changed my mind. I hope Amélie Wen Zhao has planned something explosive for the second book and the publisher has a gorgeous cover waiting for it *wink wink*.
Find me on my bookstagram @shardsofdeadlove
"A sword's purpose may be determined by its wielder, but take the weapon away entirely, and neither the merciful nor the cruel may draw blood with it.
This book brought me onto a roller-coaster of emotions with a great start, a mediocre medium, and an excellant ending. I rarely change my rating as quickly as this: at the 50% mark, I was convinced that this was going to be a 2-star-read, but the last action sequence blew my mind, and now we're here, with a 3.75/5 rounded down (because the ending left me a little disappointed).
The book started out smoothly: we were introduced to our main characters, Lan and Zen, who I quickly fell in love with. I love their dynamic, and how they balance each other. The slowburn is exquisite, and I loved seeing how they came to trust and to lean on each other.
However, the middle bit of this book was incredibly tedious as the actions were quite repetitive. I honestly didn't know that this book is 500-page-long (which is a lot for a first book of a YA Fantasy series), and I think that a big chunk of it could have been cut off or condensed. Nevertheless, I was really getting into the tension around the 75% mark. Amélie Wen Zhao knew how to build up tension for an explosive final battle and I can appreciate that. I was on my toes, reading as if my life depended on it.
Pacing problems aside, what really prevents me from loving this book was its lack of uniqueness. At this point, every mythology-inspired book starts to read the same, because the authors would take the original myths and dress it up as worldbuilding with little to no change. I think that's why I tend to enjoy Adult Fantasy more, because the YA Fantasy genre lack the freshness I crave. The same can be said for the characters and the events: a lot of them falls into archetypes or clichés that I have seen again and again. For example, I wish the ending was a little different, more intense perhaps, because I feel like I have read this before in other books.
Bottom-line: I didn't plan to read the sequel, but the last 80 pages changed my mind. I hope Amélie Wen Zhao has planned something explosive for the second book and the publisher has a gorgeous cover waiting for it *wink wink*.
Find me on my bookstagram @shardsofdeadlove
November 2, 2023
ฺ🐉 Buddy Read with @K.Manna Let's go!! 😆🎉
February 6, 2023
7.29 on CAWPILE.
I was pleasantly surprised by this! I love the Chinese mythology, the demons, the gods, all very much m,y cup of tea. It reminded me of a lot of my favourite books, which is not a bad thing, but with it being YA there were some predictabilities too it, and a couple of eye-roll moments. But overall, I really enjoyed this one!
I was pleasantly surprised by this! I love the Chinese mythology, the demons, the gods, all very much m,y cup of tea. It reminded me of a lot of my favourite books, which is not a bad thing, but with it being YA there were some predictabilities too it, and a couple of eye-roll moments. But overall, I really enjoyed this one!
January 8, 2025
4.25
Kocham azjatycką fantastykę
Kocham azjatycką fantastykę
January 15, 2023
wdy i need to wait an indefinitely amount of time for the next book?????? i need it NOW.
absolutely breathtaking. this book had everything i loved, the magic system was so interesting and clever, the world building was crafted in the most beautiful way. the pacing was slow but it made you appreciate every single detail that was put into this book a little bit more. Lan and Zen will forever be in my heart, they both had so much depth and the chemistry blew me away. Lan in one side was so intriguing to follow because of everything she had to go through but couldn't remember and I loved how things evolved and I'm get excited by just thinking about what she could be. I loved Zen a lot, the mystery surrounding him that made it hard to figure out what his intentions were was captivating and him as a character was one of the best things about this book. the side characters were to nice too, i hope we get to see more of all of them especially tài and shà'jūn.
i actually cannot wait for the second book, there's so much left, so many options the author has and i'm excited to see what she will give us!
absolutely breathtaking. this book had everything i loved, the magic system was so interesting and clever, the world building was crafted in the most beautiful way. the pacing was slow but it made you appreciate every single detail that was put into this book a little bit more. Lan and Zen will forever be in my heart, they both had so much depth and the chemistry blew me away. Lan in one side was so intriguing to follow because of everything she had to go through but couldn't remember and I loved how things evolved and I'm get excited by just thinking about what she could be. I loved Zen a lot, the mystery surrounding him that made it hard to figure out what his intentions were was captivating and him as a character was one of the best things about this book. the side characters were to nice too, i hope we get to see more of all of them especially tài and shà'jūn.
i actually cannot wait for the second book, there's so much left, so many options the author has and i'm excited to see what she will give us!
January 17, 2023
I recently took a long break from reviewing books after I was harassed by a group authors for being “too mean” but wow, this book was so bad it dragged me out of retirement since clearly no one giving this book five stars is Asian because anyone who knows Asian history knows how problematic it is betraying Asia's indigenous people as "savages". To have a YA author double down on these horrific stereotypes is disappointing. Especially when the Hins are so clearly representing the Hans...
Let’s start with the other elephant in the room, how SOSFLN so clearly copied The Poppy War and The Untamed. With scenes directly lifted from The Untamed and dialogues I remember distinctly from TPW trilogy. Zen is a carbon copy of Altan, there's no way around that. But while Altan was a well rounded character, Zen was... so badly written to say the least.
Portraying descendants of indigenous tribes (such as the Jurchen tribe Zen was based off) as “savages” and “demonic” has historically been propaganda used to justify ethnic cleansing and as much as I want to support Asian authors, Amelie Wen Zhao will forever be on my do-not-read list for leaning so heavily into discriminatory stereotypes. Especially given her past history with her debut, blood heir. Now that she’s been called out for discriminating against Black people she’s moved into discriminating the indigenous people of her continent and disabled people (see other reviews for her terrible language against a character born with a cleft palate). Also found it weird how the main location is supposed to be a Fantasy Hong Kong but everything was in mandarin, not cantonese.
The book itself is boring and convoluted with condescending world building, as others have pointed out. The author clearly mismarkets her book as an enemies to lovers where it’s actually an insta-love to enemies. If you want a great Chinese Fantasy that handles its ethnic minority representation with care, go read The Poppy War instead. Rebecca Kuang has a great track record of writing nuanced identities and her characters are real characters, not caricatures.
Let’s start with the other elephant in the room, how SOSFLN so clearly copied The Poppy War and The Untamed. With scenes directly lifted from The Untamed and dialogues I remember distinctly from TPW trilogy. Zen is a carbon copy of Altan, there's no way around that. But while Altan was a well rounded character, Zen was... so badly written to say the least.
Portraying descendants of indigenous tribes (such as the Jurchen tribe Zen was based off) as “savages” and “demonic” has historically been propaganda used to justify ethnic cleansing and as much as I want to support Asian authors, Amelie Wen Zhao will forever be on my do-not-read list for leaning so heavily into discriminatory stereotypes. Especially given her past history with her debut, blood heir. Now that she’s been called out for discriminating against Black people she’s moved into discriminating the indigenous people of her continent and disabled people (see other reviews for her terrible language against a character born with a cleft palate). Also found it weird how the main location is supposed to be a Fantasy Hong Kong but everything was in mandarin, not cantonese.
The book itself is boring and convoluted with condescending world building, as others have pointed out. The author clearly mismarkets her book as an enemies to lovers where it’s actually an insta-love to enemies. If you want a great Chinese Fantasy that handles its ethnic minority representation with care, go read The Poppy War instead. Rebecca Kuang has a great track record of writing nuanced identities and her characters are real characters, not caricatures.
November 17, 2023
This took me so long to finish 😅
I really wanted to love it. But sadly, I never quite did. I think if you've ever watched a xianxia or wuxia drama can almost predict what will happen here. Predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, in this case, nothing particularly held my attention.
It wasn’t until the last 70% or so that I felt invested in any way.
I will say though. I’m Team Zen. His sacrifice makes perfect sense and in the end, Lan and her gang are kind of doing what he intended in the first place: same thing, different font. I did not like their hypocrisy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
I really wanted to love it. But sadly, I never quite did. I think if you've ever watched a xianxia or wuxia drama can almost predict what will happen here. Predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, in this case, nothing particularly held my attention.
It wasn’t until the last 70% or so that I felt invested in any way.
I will say though. I’m Team Zen. His sacrifice makes perfect sense and in the end, Lan and her gang are kind of doing what he intended in the first place: same thing, different font. I did not like their hypocrisy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.
February 20, 2023
4.25/5
So long as we live on, we carry inside us all that they have destroyed.
This book was great! It's a sweeping story that spans dynasties, sparks the flames of ancient history, and coils across the constellations of mythology. The author's construction of this story is so precise and so skilled.
Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. This review has been postponed in support of the HarperCollins Union Strike. Congratulations to the union!
There are no heroes left for us in this world.
The main aspect of this novel that blew me away was the writing. It was stunning! Normally when you encounter beautiful writing it's in writing that's shackled to emotions, to larger-than-life characters and their overpowering feelings, and although the writing in this book is always emotive and Zhao still shines in the heartfelt moments, it's the descriptions of settings that enamour you. You are transported into this world and it is impossible to look back, you hear every melody of the wind, you catch every glimpse of moonlight through the trees. Every sight, every sound is within your grasp, effortlessly written. It is such a skill to be able to enchant a reader like Zhao does.
The world is rich and frothing with history. Worldbuilding is always something I admire and you can tell that the author knows every depth and crevasse of her world. Legends and mythologies are wound into the fabric of it, into every story that is told, into words unspoken and forbidden, into books that are left to rot and cultures that are forgotten throughout time. We unravel the history of this world as we are swallowed by it, unlocking new pathways we never dreamed of walking. It is so complex and masterfully woven, sharing glimpses into the secrets of the past with sharp precision at the exact moments the reader needs the information revealed to them.
The characters are also spell-binding. They, too, have histories inside them, legacies and unknowns and ghosts that haunt them. They are complicated and fragile, they are determined and strong. They want to fight for their world, a world they do not know how to save. They want to fight against their enemies, enemies they do not know how to conquer.
So long as there was life, there was hope.
The further you read, the more all-encompassing this story grows and I cannot wait for the sequel! I would particularly recommend this story to those who like xianxia, to those who loved The Poppy War (particularly the shamanism side of it), and to those who like Chinese mythology retellings.
So long as we live on, we carry inside us all that they have destroyed.
This book was great! It's a sweeping story that spans dynasties, sparks the flames of ancient history, and coils across the constellations of mythology. The author's construction of this story is so precise and so skilled.
Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. This review has been postponed in support of the HarperCollins Union Strike. Congratulations to the union!
There are no heroes left for us in this world.
The main aspect of this novel that blew me away was the writing. It was stunning! Normally when you encounter beautiful writing it's in writing that's shackled to emotions, to larger-than-life characters and their overpowering feelings, and although the writing in this book is always emotive and Zhao still shines in the heartfelt moments, it's the descriptions of settings that enamour you. You are transported into this world and it is impossible to look back, you hear every melody of the wind, you catch every glimpse of moonlight through the trees. Every sight, every sound is within your grasp, effortlessly written. It is such a skill to be able to enchant a reader like Zhao does.
The world is rich and frothing with history. Worldbuilding is always something I admire and you can tell that the author knows every depth and crevasse of her world. Legends and mythologies are wound into the fabric of it, into every story that is told, into words unspoken and forbidden, into books that are left to rot and cultures that are forgotten throughout time. We unravel the history of this world as we are swallowed by it, unlocking new pathways we never dreamed of walking. It is so complex and masterfully woven, sharing glimpses into the secrets of the past with sharp precision at the exact moments the reader needs the information revealed to them.
The characters are also spell-binding. They, too, have histories inside them, legacies and unknowns and ghosts that haunt them. They are complicated and fragile, they are determined and strong. They want to fight for their world, a world they do not know how to save. They want to fight against their enemies, enemies they do not know how to conquer.
So long as there was life, there was hope.
The further you read, the more all-encompassing this story grows and I cannot wait for the sequel! I would particularly recommend this story to those who like xianxia, to those who loved The Poppy War (particularly the shamanism side of it), and to those who like Chinese mythology retellings.
December 20, 2022
Thank you so much, Netgalley and Publisher for this advanced copy.
I was so excited to read this book when they granted my request. Especially because the Author kept telling us about all tropes...
Well, Turned out, I didn't like this book at all.
First, Let's talk about the marketing. Nowdays, after booktok and bookstagram, describing all the tropes of book became a trend in promoting your book and Amélie Wen Zhao did the same thing. She described all those tropes too much. Making me guessed the major plot of this book correctly. There was no surprise at all in the plot because SHE SPOILED HER ENTIRE BOOK!!
I didn't get where the hell is "Enemy to Lovers" trope. The first thing Zen saw Lan... hw was captivated by her appearance. Where was the "Enemy" part???
Amélie Wen Zhao also said this FMC was a strong character... NO. SHE WASN'T. She was a stubborn, childish, annoying kid. The way she poked her tongue out to the Old Men... There was such a childish act as a "Strong Main Character".
This book had the same vibe as The Poppy War, well that was what the promotion said... I hadn't read TPW series, so I didn't know if this book had a same vibe to TPW. But this book was reminding me to The Blood Of Star Duology by Elizabeth Lim (Spin The Dawn Series) : The character had a deal with Demon God and started corrupted themself. It was such a potential thing in this book, but the execution wasn't that good. Somehow, the story became so cliche.
Last Thing, The Metalwork Magic looked like Mistborn' "Art Of Metal". I didn't know if this was a copycat. But, the magic system was too much (Qi Magic, Metalwork, etc) and just existed to support the plot.
Overall, This book was a big NAH for me.
I was so excited to read this book when they granted my request. Especially because the Author kept telling us about all tropes...
Well, Turned out, I didn't like this book at all.
First, Let's talk about the marketing. Nowdays, after booktok and bookstagram, describing all the tropes of book became a trend in promoting your book and Amélie Wen Zhao did the same thing. She described all those tropes too much. Making me guessed the major plot of this book correctly. There was no surprise at all in the plot because SHE SPOILED HER ENTIRE BOOK!!
I didn't get where the hell is "Enemy to Lovers" trope. The first thing Zen saw Lan... hw was captivated by her appearance. Where was the "Enemy" part???
Amélie Wen Zhao also said this FMC was a strong character... NO. SHE WASN'T. She was a stubborn, childish, annoying kid. The way she poked her tongue out to the Old Men... There was such a childish act as a "Strong Main Character".
This book had the same vibe as The Poppy War, well that was what the promotion said... I hadn't read TPW series, so I didn't know if this book had a same vibe to TPW. But this book was reminding me to The Blood Of Star Duology by Elizabeth Lim (Spin The Dawn Series) : The character had a deal with Demon God and started corrupted themself. It was such a potential thing in this book, but the execution wasn't that good. Somehow, the story became so cliche.
Last Thing, The Metalwork Magic looked like Mistborn' "Art Of Metal". I didn't know if this was a copycat. But, the magic system was too much (Qi Magic, Metalwork, etc) and just existed to support the plot.
Overall, This book was a big NAH for me.
January 13, 2023
chloe gong called this book “devastatingly gorgeous” and she literally couldn’t have been any more correct. this book was devastating AND gorgeous and amélie wen zhao needs to stop being so cruel
July 14, 2023
absolutely epic!!
this book deserves so much hype!
this book deserves so much hype!
did-not-finish
January 12, 2023DNF @ 10%
Some of the things that annoyed me:
- white colonizers being in a book marketed as xianxia threw me for a loop, and not in a good way
- random/inconsistent romanization and use of tonal indicators
- the naming thing - obviously this is just fictional so I know I'm being petty, but do we really have to associate single character given names to white colonizers now? As far as I know, this is not a historically accurate thing - there were periods of time where double-character names went out of favour, but they were not because of western influences (please correct me if I'm wrong).
- usage of random Chinese words throughout the text, that were then defined/explained in text in the most patronizing and annoying way. Please, I beg, just use a footnote if you must. Or just call the sword a sword, it's fine.
Listen, I think there is an audience for this book. I just am not that audience, and I think continuing on in this book would be doing both me and this book a disservice.
Some of the things that annoyed me:
- white colonizers being in a book marketed as xianxia threw me for a loop, and not in a good way
- random/inconsistent romanization and use of tonal indicators
- the naming thing - obviously this is just fictional so I know I'm being petty, but do we really have to associate single character given names to white colonizers now? As far as I know, this is not a historically accurate thing - there were periods of time where double-character names went out of favour, but they were not because of western influences (please correct me if I'm wrong).
- usage of random Chinese words throughout the text, that were then defined/explained in text in the most patronizing and annoying way. Please, I beg, just use a footnote if you must. Or just call the sword a sword, it's fine.
Listen, I think there is an audience for this book. I just am not that audience, and I think continuing on in this book would be doing both me and this book a disservice.
August 8, 2024
3,5/4 na 5
Końcówka mocno podciągnęła ocenę. Ostatnie 200 stron najlepsze 🤌🏻
Końcówka mocno podciągnęła ocenę. Ostatnie 200 stron najlepsze 🤌🏻
March 6, 2024
I have loved all the beautiful Chinese folklore stories i've been able to read in the past year and Song of Silver, Flame Like Night is definitely a great contender.
I was pulled in by the wonderful world that Amelie created! She did not skimp on world building, political climate and the magic system -- which led to a more complex rich story in my opinion. Lan and Zen are characters aren't that aren't perfect and I appreciated that. I was still rooting for them despite their flaws. There is a romance, but it's not the main purpose of the plot but the sweetness of it was something I enjoyed and can't wait to see where it goes.
I loved the plot and how the connections of the past defined these characters futures. This was a great start to the series. I have no idea where its headed and I really liked that. It was unpredictable, full of high stakes and had an ending that had me wanting book 2 immediately and this one isn't even out yet.
I can only compare this to a mix of Shadow and Bone, Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Star Wars (I know this seems like the craziest mash up but believe me...it works) I've heard some say that this felt "info dumpy" but for me it just worked, and I did not feel this way about it and took me by surprise.
4.5 stars!
I was pulled in by the wonderful world that Amelie created! She did not skimp on world building, political climate and the magic system -- which led to a more complex rich story in my opinion. Lan and Zen are characters aren't that aren't perfect and I appreciated that. I was still rooting for them despite their flaws. There is a romance, but it's not the main purpose of the plot but the sweetness of it was something I enjoyed and can't wait to see where it goes.
I loved the plot and how the connections of the past defined these characters futures. This was a great start to the series. I have no idea where its headed and I really liked that. It was unpredictable, full of high stakes and had an ending that had me wanting book 2 immediately and this one isn't even out yet.
I can only compare this to a mix of Shadow and Bone, Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Star Wars (I know this seems like the craziest mash up but believe me...it works) I've heard some say that this felt "info dumpy" but for me it just worked, and I did not feel this way about it and took me by surprise.
4.5 stars!
January 10, 2023
Hmmm this is a really difficult review to write. I really enjoyed the Chinese mythology and Chinese folklore. It definitely had xianxia vibes and felt like a sweeping fantasy. I think for me it just comes down to personal preferences and I didn’t click with this book.
My biggest complaint with this book and what ruined the story for me was the way the author wrote about one of the main characters. They have a cleft lip scar. The author had the other main character stare at it every time they walked in and repeated called it “rabbit lips” and “harelips” I found this super uncomfortable for me and hurtful considering it’s just a cosmetic scar. I understand there was/ is a problematic prejudice in the book that was part of the character’s backstory. But to constantly be calling it out and mentioning it by slurs just felt so very unnecessary and cruel. I think the author could have included the character having a scar and saying this is why they have a scar and there is an unfortunate bias that comes with those scars without the rude name calling. It was very poor representation considering another character has an arm and eye injury that is never called out by slurs.
The main character Lan is an interesting character. She is definitely that angry girl trope acquired taste personality. I don’t think I’ve read the word fart this much since I was in middle school. Dog fart, rat fart, old fart, young farts you name it this book has all the farts and then some. It felt a bit disjointed from the ancient Chinese mythology feel.
I think the magic system and the qí was done really well. I loved the four demon gods and the seal/ practitioner magic. The story at times felt like like a mashup up some of my favorite fandoms. It had Legend of Zelda vibes and lots of Star Wars references.
The plot and the pace was decent and there were many action scenes but it did sometimes feel very much like that first book push. The beginning was a big info dump and it felt like it had to get all of the world building and major plot points in before the last half of the book where the majority of the action happened so you’d want to continue the story. It made it a bit confusing at first and slow to start.
Overall I would be interested but hesitant to read the next book because this one just felt so disappointing. I wanted to love it because as a Chinese reader I love the rep but I couldn’t connect with this story.
Thank you to Random House Children's, Delacorte Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC
My biggest complaint with this book and what ruined the story for me was the way the author wrote about one of the main characters. They have a cleft lip scar. The author had the other main character stare at it every time they walked in and repeated called it “rabbit lips” and “harelips” I found this super uncomfortable for me and hurtful considering it’s just a cosmetic scar. I understand there was/ is a problematic prejudice in the book that was part of the character’s backstory. But to constantly be calling it out and mentioning it by slurs just felt so very unnecessary and cruel. I think the author could have included the character having a scar and saying this is why they have a scar and there is an unfortunate bias that comes with those scars without the rude name calling. It was very poor representation considering another character has an arm and eye injury that is never called out by slurs.
The main character Lan is an interesting character. She is definitely that angry girl trope acquired taste personality. I don’t think I’ve read the word fart this much since I was in middle school. Dog fart, rat fart, old fart, young farts you name it this book has all the farts and then some. It felt a bit disjointed from the ancient Chinese mythology feel.
I think the magic system and the qí was done really well. I loved the four demon gods and the seal/ practitioner magic. The story at times felt like like a mashup up some of my favorite fandoms. It had Legend of Zelda vibes and lots of Star Wars references.
The plot and the pace was decent and there were many action scenes but it did sometimes feel very much like that first book push. The beginning was a big info dump and it felt like it had to get all of the world building and major plot points in before the last half of the book where the majority of the action happened so you’d want to continue the story. It made it a bit confusing at first and slow to start.
Overall I would be interested but hesitant to read the next book because this one just felt so disappointing. I wanted to love it because as a Chinese reader I love the rep but I couldn’t connect with this story.
Thank you to Random House Children's, Delacorte Press and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC
May 23, 2025
0/10
If you liked Rings of Power you will be OK with this book. If you liked Avatar Way of Water you will be OK with this book. If you don't like books with mystery-box storytelling with plots that are just set up for the real conflict later this book is not for you.
This review might sound mean, but by the standards set in this book it would probably be called "witty" and everyone would either love it or just silently deal with it. The nice way of saying this is that the author tried to make a statement instead of writing a story and that there was no pay off because nothing was set up effectively. But being nice in this book gets you stepped on. So let's be mean.
Worst book I've ever read. This book is like someone trying to convince me Amazon's Rings of Power is cannon Tolkien, The Last Airbender is really Avatar, and the live-action remake of Mulan is better than the original animated one. The author is trying to convince me that a selfish, arrogant, hypocrite of a main character is a noble, strong, benevolent person. I'm not buying it.
Characters are the equivalent of a glossary entry at the end of a book and have less description than obituaries in the newspaper. The main character is a Mary Sue worse than Rey from Star Wars and is an awful person (disrespecting other people's beliefs and values, bad mouthing everyone, showing no regard for others' safety, etc). If being like her is what gets you love and friends I'd rather be forever alone.
The romance can be summed up in: they looked at one another, they both thought the other was hot, they could see the trust in the other's eyes. The author even failed the gay side romance. Kristine Cashore wrote a better gay side romance in Graceling and it only took one paragraph. I'd sooner believe that Garfield and Odie had a secret love affair than any of the romance in this book.
The symbolism is not subtle and is very repetitive. Why is that passage so jarringly out of place and almost a carbon copy of something five pages ago? Symbolism. Why have I heard the word "flesh" more times than a documentary on cannibals? Symbolism. Can you understand colors? Great. You can figure out 90% of the book. But don't worry if it doesn't makes sense because this book is full of contradictions, plot holes, hypocrisy, and leaps in reasoning so large NASA should research them for use in deep space exploration.
The villain is about as much of a threat as Swiper the Fox from Dora the Explorer. Which is worse when you realize he's the only character in the whole book with a clear goal, a motivation, and we know how far he's willing to go to achieve his goals. The Qi magic system is about as deeply explored as the Qi in Kung Fu Panda 3, and the song Lesson Number One from Mulan 2 is better at establishing the importance of balance.
Furthermore, the whole thing was such a poor reskinning of China that the Last Kingdom might as well have been named "Chai'na and the Elantians named "Wai'tumen". The only thing missing from pseudo-China is opium. The whole book fell into an uncanny valley between fantasy and historical fantasy and often read more like anti-western propaganda than a YA romance.
Also I love the constant insinuations that scars and birth defects mar a person's body (with zero cultural context), you're justified in being mean to anyone who is mean to you, and killing is okay as long as you think they're evil. And shout out to the where the author writes it would be a shame for a pretty boy to be celibate.
If you liked Rings of Power you will be OK with this book. If you liked Avatar Way of Water you will be OK with this book. If you don't like books with mystery-box storytelling with plots that are just set up for the real conflict later this book is not for you.
This review might sound mean, but by the standards set in this book it would probably be called "witty" and everyone would either love it or just silently deal with it. The nice way of saying this is that the author tried to make a statement instead of writing a story and that there was no pay off because nothing was set up effectively. But being nice in this book gets you stepped on. So let's be mean.
Worst book I've ever read. This book is like someone trying to convince me Amazon's Rings of Power is cannon Tolkien, The Last Airbender is really Avatar, and the live-action remake of Mulan is better than the original animated one. The author is trying to convince me that a selfish, arrogant, hypocrite of a main character is a noble, strong, benevolent person. I'm not buying it.
Characters are the equivalent of a glossary entry at the end of a book and have less description than obituaries in the newspaper. The main character is a Mary Sue worse than Rey from Star Wars and is an awful person (disrespecting other people's beliefs and values, bad mouthing everyone, showing no regard for others' safety, etc). If being like her is what gets you love and friends I'd rather be forever alone.
The romance can be summed up in: they looked at one another, they both thought the other was hot, they could see the trust in the other's eyes. The author even failed the gay side romance. Kristine Cashore wrote a better gay side romance in Graceling and it only took one paragraph. I'd sooner believe that Garfield and Odie had a secret love affair than any of the romance in this book.
The symbolism is not subtle and is very repetitive. Why is that passage so jarringly out of place and almost a carbon copy of something five pages ago? Symbolism. Why have I heard the word "flesh" more times than a documentary on cannibals? Symbolism. Can you understand colors? Great. You can figure out 90% of the book. But don't worry if it doesn't makes sense because this book is full of contradictions, plot holes, hypocrisy, and leaps in reasoning so large NASA should research them for use in deep space exploration.
The villain is about as much of a threat as Swiper the Fox from Dora the Explorer. Which is worse when you realize he's the only character in the whole book with a clear goal, a motivation, and we know how far he's willing to go to achieve his goals. The Qi magic system is about as deeply explored as the Qi in Kung Fu Panda 3, and the song Lesson Number One from Mulan 2 is better at establishing the importance of balance.
Furthermore, the whole thing was such a poor reskinning of China that the Last Kingdom might as well have been named "Chai'na and the Elantians named "Wai'tumen". The only thing missing from pseudo-China is opium. The whole book fell into an uncanny valley between fantasy and historical fantasy and often read more like anti-western propaganda than a YA romance.
Also I love the constant insinuations that scars and birth defects mar a person's body (with zero cultural context), you're justified in being mean to anyone who is mean to you, and killing is okay as long as you think they're evil. And shout out to the where the author writes it would be a shame for a pretty boy to be celibate.
November 7, 2024
4/5
W świecie mierzącym się z kolonizatorami żyje Lan - dziewczyna szukająca zwoju, który wyjaśni dziwny znak na jej dłoni, który zostawiła jej matka chwilę przed śmiercią z ręki Zimowego Maga, który obecnie na nią poluje. Gdy dziewczyna spotyka Zena - czarodzieja władającego zakazaną magią, los plącze ich ścieżki. Razem, wyzwolą swój lud lub go zniszczą.
Kto uwielbia mitologię oraz folklor chiński zakocha się w tej powieści! Barwne opisy miejsc oraz wszechobecne elementy kultury azjatyckiej idealnie wprowadzają czytelnika w klimat powieści. Autorka przepięknie wizualizuje lokalizacje, które odwiedzają nasi bohaterowie jak i w przyjemny sposób wprowadza nas w wykreowany świat i historię.
Choć jest to młodzieżówka, której elementy szczególnie widać w dialogach jest to kawał porządnej fantastyki z motywem przygody, demonami, złem oraz oryginalnym wykreowanym systemem magii bazującym na chińskich wierzeniach.
Zapajałam sympatią do postaci ale bardziej niż osobno, wolę ich w duecie. Niczym prawdziwe Yin i Yang, Lan i Zen są sobie przeciwstawni. Ona, lekkoduch, kochająca łamać zasady. On, żyjący dla nich oraz powściągliwy w beztroskach. Budują idealną energię wywołując w czytelniku śmiech jak i momentami wzruszenie
Jedyne co mi przeszkadzało w powieści to nierównomierne tempo akcji. Mocny i rwący początek, gdy wyprowadził już na spokojniejsze wody, sprawił że zapragnęłam ponownie zostać wrzucą w wir wydarzeń. I nie powiem, nie polubiłam się z Zenem od początku ze względu na jego zachowanie przy pierwszym spotkaniu z Lan.
Myślę, że to książka wyjątkowa, szczególnie dla autorki, która wróciła do swoich korzeni chcąc się podzielić mitami i dziedzictwem swojej rodziny. Czuć jej serce w tej powieści, w każdej kartce tej książki, przez co bardzo wyczekuję drugiego tomu: Ciemna gwiazda, biel popiołu.
W świecie mierzącym się z kolonizatorami żyje Lan - dziewczyna szukająca zwoju, który wyjaśni dziwny znak na jej dłoni, który zostawiła jej matka chwilę przed śmiercią z ręki Zimowego Maga, który obecnie na nią poluje. Gdy dziewczyna spotyka Zena - czarodzieja władającego zakazaną magią, los plącze ich ścieżki. Razem, wyzwolą swój lud lub go zniszczą.
Kto uwielbia mitologię oraz folklor chiński zakocha się w tej powieści! Barwne opisy miejsc oraz wszechobecne elementy kultury azjatyckiej idealnie wprowadzają czytelnika w klimat powieści. Autorka przepięknie wizualizuje lokalizacje, które odwiedzają nasi bohaterowie jak i w przyjemny sposób wprowadza nas w wykreowany świat i historię.
Choć jest to młodzieżówka, której elementy szczególnie widać w dialogach jest to kawał porządnej fantastyki z motywem przygody, demonami, złem oraz oryginalnym wykreowanym systemem magii bazującym na chińskich wierzeniach.
Zapajałam sympatią do postaci ale bardziej niż osobno, wolę ich w duecie. Niczym prawdziwe Yin i Yang, Lan i Zen są sobie przeciwstawni. Ona, lekkoduch, kochająca łamać zasady. On, żyjący dla nich oraz powściągliwy w beztroskach. Budują idealną energię wywołując w czytelniku śmiech jak i momentami wzruszenie
Jedyne co mi przeszkadzało w powieści to nierównomierne tempo akcji. Mocny i rwący początek, gdy wyprowadził już na spokojniejsze wody, sprawił że zapragnęłam ponownie zostać wrzucą w wir wydarzeń. I nie powiem, nie polubiłam się z Zenem od początku ze względu na jego zachowanie przy pierwszym spotkaniu z Lan.
Myślę, że to książka wyjątkowa, szczególnie dla autorki, która wróciła do swoich korzeni chcąc się podzielić mitami i dziedzictwem swojej rodziny. Czuć jej serce w tej powieści, w każdej kartce tej książki, przez co bardzo wyczekuję drugiego tomu: Ciemna gwiazda, biel popiołu.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,310 reviews