Reviews

Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen

mishkaroni's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious sad slow-paced

5.0

Every time I choose a book based of name and cover alone and then the blurb hooks me, I have not been disappointed. Actually I fall in love. This time is no different.

While the book starts out with a murder and there's some chaos here and there, it is a slower paced book. And I was delightfully enthralled. I should have put every other arc down to get to this one sooner. But all that matters is I read it and fell in love.

This is very Mulan as an engineer seeking revenge for her father's death. Still a daughter, a force to be reckoned with and one who still wants to make her fate proud. Even his death.

This book has everything, YA fantasy with a slow build romance and acts of betrayl and unexpected friendships. I can't wait for the sequel.

madbookworm15's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mystralstorm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Thank you for the eARC NetGalley and Penguin Group. All opinions provided are my own.

Of Jade and Dragon is about Aihui Ying, an eighteen year-old girl, and her journey of uncovering the mystery of who murder her father and obtaining her dreams of entering the Engineering Guild. While trying to find clues of who murder her father, she has to avoid being discovered as a girl (only men can enter the guild, pass the three tests that determines if she can enter the guild, and figure out her feelings for Aogiya Ye-yang. 

Between the title, summary, and cover of the book, I was really excited to read Of Jade and Dragon. I have always loved Mulan and I liked Iron Widow so I was curious to see how the story would go. Sadly it didn't take long for disappointment to set in. In the very beginning of the book, Ying's father asked her to do 3 things: do not look at the journal, burn the journal, and do not investigate/ avenge his death. As soon as he was buried, she immediately disregarded his requests. Look, I get it. There would be no story if she did not investigate her father's murder but it felt like she was using his death to go live the dream she always wanted. It felt like she had to constantly remind herself why she was taking the guild test. She was investigating and taking the tests for selfish reasons. Nothing similar to Mulan in that regard. I had to force myself to finish the book. 

There was a lot I did not like about this story but I did enjoy the world building and side characters. It was pretty cool how the steampunk elements were intertwined into the world.

Overall I did not care for the book. I gave it 3.5 stars with a round up to 4. I usually enjoy Asian fantasy: YA or adult, so I'm not sure I was not vibing with this story. Hopefully others will enjoy it. 

readsinbloom's review

3.5

“Of Jade and Dragons” by Amber Chen can be described as mulan with engineering plus a murder mystery. The protagonist, Ying, disguises herself as a man to join the exclusive men-only engineer’s guild after her father, who was a member, has been murdered to discover who was behind it. 

In order to become a member of the engineer’s guild, one must compete in a set of trials. I love when books have trials or games that someone must win. I do wish that the trials had been a more substantial part of the plot or were more intense, but I really enjoyed this part of the book. I was really rooting for Ying and it was super fun to read the trials. Outside of the trials, I felt the book was slow at times. 

There are two main male characters throughout the book: Ye-yang and Yekan. Both sons of the emperor that aid Ying throughout her journey. Personally, I favored Yekan to Ye-yang. However, this was not a love triangle situation. Chen created very loveable and intriguing characters throughout this book.

Overall, I think this is a great YA fantasy that can be read by any age!

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! 

ameserole's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

4.0

mellamaron's review against another edition

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc but this one isn’t for me.

DNF at 21%. Small spoilers for up to that percentage 

Honestly… it all felt so bland? I’m an engineer and I was so excited to have a female engineer as a protagonist in a fantasy but I didn’t connect with her at all. Her father dies right off the bat and she barely blinks an eye - one tear falling at the graves of her parents. Besides her quest for finding his killer, she doesn’t even seem sad about his death? Nor even surprised? She doesn’t seem to have many feelings at all to be honest - it’s like her personality is “I like flying” 🙃

Ye-Yang too didn’t feel like a person but a stereotype. Prince who helps her. And I am soooo disappointed that the author chose to have Ying tell him she was a girl immediately upon meeting him. Because that’s one of my favorite parts of “girl disguised as guy” books: the male love interest being confused why he has feelings for a “guy”. By taking that out… is it even fun anymore? 🤷‍♀️

Ultimately the entire portion I read just felt pretty bland, from the writing style (which I would argue is a bit on the lower end of YA) to the plot to the characters. I don’t have any want to continue.

allofmyfriendsarebooks's review

adventurous challenging hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

leahtreads's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.0

bingsoojung's review

3.75

I received an ARC of this book for free from netgalley and the publisher.

I really liked this book to be honest. The main character of this book was delightfully headstrong, the romance was romancing in the right way, the tension was good, the standard 3 act tournament arc was paced delightfully, and the murder was devious in the right way that made you feel like you were gaining ground, but not enough to solve it quite yet.  I also really enjoyed the deviousness and capriciousness of some characters, and the careful line the author toed in writing a genuinely Morally Grey Love Interest TM who you can adore. The goods of this book far outweigh any of the bads, and I would unquestionably recommend this book for someone looking for a good light fantasy read.

That being said I had 3 gripes with the book, going from least annoying to most. This doesn’t meant the least annoying isn’t the worst, it just means it annoyed me the least.

1. The world felt hollow. I honestly didn’t get a sense of any distinct nature of any of the kingdoms or of the world. No nation, culture, or group, was particularly distinct in nature, I couldn’t figure out what was supposed to allow me to tell them apart. This was most apparently in that I didn’t realise that the setting of the book was fantasy Malaysia/Singpore politically and Manchurian culturally, until about half way through. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the main character is called Anhui Ying, and that Anhui is a real place in Northern China, and not a surname in Chinese.
2. A lot of the characters didn’t feel their age. Despite the fact that Ying and Ye-Yang are apparently a year apart, and Ye-Kan is years younger than Ying, it didn’t feel that way. Ying and Ye-Kan felt the same age, whereas Ye-Yang felt quite a bit older. Like I wish the author had done a better job of making the characters feel their age.
3. The author needed to explain that A-ma/ama/ahma means dad in Manchu. This was the most confusing thing for me personally, as in most Chinese languages ahma means grandma or mom, including all major Chinese languages spoken in Singapore, where the author is from. Just a note would've been so appreciated because I didn't understand what was happening.

TLDR; A fantastic book that, personally, didn’t quite hit. I would recommend this for anyone who really wants people to recognize that China invented gunpowder, and write a fantasy novel around that. That being said, parts of the book left me incredibly confused, especially her calling her dad a-ma. All in all a 7/10 rounded up for very good feelings.

atlasrising41818's review

4.0

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book early in exchange for a review!

I absolutely loved this book! This was such a unique take on adding engineering into a novel and I found it quite compelling to watch Ying grow as a character and engineer. There was definitely some slow bits towards the middle where there wasn't much going on besides the schooling for the trials, but it really picked back up and I was almost sad to reach the end!