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serendipity421's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-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? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Animal death, Grief, Blood, Torture, Murder, and Violence
Minor: Alcohol
oakairi's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
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
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Violence, and Death
Moderate: Murder, Blood, and War
Minor: Torture and Alcohol
vixenreader's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
The last third of the book saved it from transforming into another typical YA troupe, especially with its use of folklore.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Torture, Murder, Genocide, Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Grief, Body horror, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Alcohol, War, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Kidnapping, Medical content, Child abuse, and Classism
Minor: Cursing
Be aware that there are graphic moments of possession, trading human lives for power, chronic pain, broken limbs, and parasites being removed from body parts.sinceraly's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
After I finished A Magic Steeped in Poison, I rushed to my Libby app and rented the ebook version of A Venom Dark and Sweet. I had so much anticipation to what I thought would be an excellent follow up to a very exciting ending with a lot of intrigue set up. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed by what I got instead.
Like always, we start with the pros:
The world building. A Venom Dark and Sweet carries on the excellent world building as it's predecessor, with the world of Dàxi being something unlike anything I've ever been taken through as a reader. I love how the author makes her own spins on Chinese legends, and how the book has a sort of myth-become-real vibe. It makes you, as the reader, really want to pay attention to the foundational stories of the kingdom to better understand how things work.
The magic system. I still think the usage of tea as a conductor of the brewer's magic is brilliant, but I was sad to see it get so much less screentime than in the first book. I'll expand on that later.
Kang's point of view chapters. I thought it was interesting to see him grapple with the actions of his father, and it added a lot to what could otherwise be a bit of a dull read.
The section with The Hermit. Won't expand on this because I don't want to spoil for any potential readers!
I really wish there was more I could say about the book positively, but that's all that comes to mind a mere two days after reading it. The negatives are a lot more prevalent in this book, almost entirely because so much revolves around the weakness of Ning as a main character.
Ning is a very bland main character. By the end of AMSIP I was confident that she had grown enough to be an interesting main character, but she hadn't. Even the addition of her sister as a traveling member for the first half of the book did nothing, really, except make it even more clear that she really does not have much of a personality beyond caring about her family. Sometimes the author would play with something interesting - like Ning being tempted to give into a terrible force if only to avenge the people who sacrificed everything to help her, or her anger and distrust of Kang from his betrayal - and then it'd just get completely swept over with no trouble. I want to make one thing clear: what makes a main character interesting is not their immediate and stable sense of morality, impervious to any sort of temptation or tarnishing, but their internal conflict of keeping with that morality. Every time Ning had a moment to question whether or not she wanted to be honorable, it would be dealt with by a simple "ah, but that's what the bad guys did!" And that was the entire depth to her character development.
The romance is just bad. I really tried to give it a pass, especially considering that I like Kang a lot, more than I liked Ning, and I did see potential in it from the first book. But the lack of any sort of actual chemistry with these two is just so obvious. Every time they'd think of each other, it felt like the author was waving a big, lit up arrow sign ala Las Vegas Strip that just said "they love each other, guys! source: just trust me." I liked the idea of Ning having shown Kang that shit wasn't right, and that leading to doubt in his father's plans. I liked the idea of Ning being torn on Kang because of his betrayal. I did not like how they just fell back into loving each other and trusting each other so easily after having their relationship shatter the first time. I do not like how their relationship skipped over them actually being friends, being equals in each other's eyes. I do not like how their relationship gets mentioned by Ning more often than the people who literally died in their attempt to help her escape from the besieged palace. I do not like this relationship set up, Sam I Am.
The lack of the actually interesting side characters. With the exception of Kang, who had the more interesting chapters of the book (because the book remembered its actually also supposed to have political intrigue in his chapters), the more interesting characters of the first book are either minimally included or not at all. The kitchen staff show up just to point out to Kang that shit isn't as it seemed with his father - which seemed like a waste, to me, since he had already been figuring that out on his own, and it would have hit much harder if it didn't take the commoners telling him that his dad was being manipulated by a demon. There is also the fact that the Zhen, Ruyi, and Shu, the main supportive cast, straight up get left behind halfway in and then play the most minimal roles possible, while also being the more interesting characters there even as the author seasons their personalities with "we only care about what Ning thinks" sauce.
WHERE IS THE TEA. So much of the first book was straight up carried by its super unique and awesome tea magic system that's almost absent from the second book. The author does explain it, and it does make sense - tea based magic is limited to being able to perform a tea making ritual every time, and that's straight up not always plausible - but when your books are marketed with this tea based magic, you need to find a way to carry through! Ning is not a strong enough character to stand without her magic to support her. I missed the competition setting of the first book in hindsight because it forced the book to be creative about the magic system. Without it, it really falls so much flatter.
Wow that ending was both convenient and rushed. I won't say too much to avoid spoilers, but there's one point in which the Big Bad literally shatters ancient relics that are supposed to stop him and seal him away, and then they deadass just reform around the main characters when the Big Bad isn't paying attention. No special reason why. They just do. There's more I could say, but the gist of it is that the ending is incredibly rushed, lowers every stake the book painfully made, and then ends with an epilogue where everything is sunshine and rainbows instead of focusing on the toll taken and the rebuilding of the kingdom at all. Just so terribly disappointing.
Really, what saves this book is that despite everything, the author writes well, and I am generally a fan of mythology based worlds enough to have that carry me, but mileage will vary and all that good stuff. I feel like if the author had just made the first book longer, got rid of the filler of this book, and mashed the two, we wouldn't have needed a duology and it would have made this book's content stronger. Did I hate this book? No. But will I read it again? Probably not.
Like always, we start with the pros:
The world building. A Venom Dark and Sweet carries on the excellent world building as it's predecessor, with the world of Dàxi being something unlike anything I've ever been taken through as a reader. I love how the author makes her own spins on Chinese legends, and how the book has a sort of myth-become-real vibe. It makes you, as the reader, really want to pay attention to the foundational stories of the kingdom to better understand how things work.
The magic system. I still think the usage of tea as a conductor of the brewer's magic is brilliant, but I was sad to see it get so much less screentime than in the first book. I'll expand on that later.
Kang's point of view chapters. I thought it was interesting to see him grapple with the actions of his father, and it added a lot to what could otherwise be a bit of a dull read.
The section with The Hermit. Won't expand on this because I don't want to spoil for any potential readers!
I really wish there was more I could say about the book positively, but that's all that comes to mind a mere two days after reading it. The negatives are a lot more prevalent in this book, almost entirely because so much revolves around the weakness of Ning as a main character.
Ning is a very bland main character. By the end of AMSIP I was confident that she had grown enough to be an interesting main character, but she hadn't. Even the addition of her sister as a traveling member for the first half of the book did nothing, really, except make it even more clear that she really does not have much of a personality beyond caring about her family. Sometimes the author would play with something interesting - like Ning being tempted to give into a terrible force if only to avenge the people who sacrificed everything to help her, or her anger and distrust of Kang from his betrayal - and then it'd just get completely swept over with no trouble. I want to make one thing clear: what makes a main character interesting is not their immediate and stable sense of morality, impervious to any sort of temptation or tarnishing, but their internal conflict of keeping with that morality. Every time Ning had a moment to question whether or not she wanted to be honorable, it would be dealt with by a simple "ah, but that's what the bad guys did!" And that was the entire depth to her character development.
The romance is just bad. I really tried to give it a pass, especially considering that I like Kang a lot, more than I liked Ning, and I did see potential in it from the first book. But the lack of any sort of actual chemistry with these two is just so obvious. Every time they'd think of each other, it felt like the author was waving a big, lit up arrow sign ala Las Vegas Strip that just said "they love each other, guys! source: just trust me." I liked the idea of Ning having shown Kang that shit wasn't right, and that leading to doubt in his father's plans. I liked the idea of Ning being torn on Kang because of his betrayal. I did not like how they just fell back into loving each other and trusting each other so easily after having their relationship shatter the first time. I do not like how their relationship skipped over them actually being friends, being equals in each other's eyes. I do not like how their relationship gets mentioned by Ning more often than the people who literally died in their attempt to help her escape from the besieged palace. I do not like this relationship set up, Sam I Am.
The lack of the actually interesting side characters. With the exception of Kang, who had the more interesting chapters of the book (because the book remembered its actually also supposed to have political intrigue in his chapters), the more interesting characters of the first book are either minimally included or not at all. The kitchen staff show up just to point out to Kang that shit isn't as it seemed with his father - which seemed like a waste, to me, since he had already been figuring that out on his own, and it would have hit much harder if it didn't take the commoners telling him that his dad was being manipulated by a demon. There is also the fact that the Zhen, Ruyi, and Shu, the main supportive cast, straight up get left behind halfway in and then play the most minimal roles possible, while also being the more interesting characters there even as the author seasons their personalities with "we only care about what Ning thinks" sauce.
WHERE IS THE TEA. So much of the first book was straight up carried by its super unique and awesome tea magic system that's almost absent from the second book. The author does explain it, and it does make sense - tea based magic is limited to being able to perform a tea making ritual every time, and that's straight up not always plausible - but when your books are marketed with this tea based magic, you need to find a way to carry through! Ning is not a strong enough character to stand without her magic to support her. I missed the competition setting of the first book in hindsight because it forced the book to be creative about the magic system. Without it, it really falls so much flatter.
Wow that ending was both convenient and rushed. I won't say too much to avoid spoilers, but there's one point in which the Big Bad literally shatters ancient relics that are supposed to stop him and seal him away, and then they deadass just reform around the main characters when the Big Bad isn't paying attention. No special reason why. They just do. There's more I could say, but the gist of it is that the ending is incredibly rushed, lowers every stake the book painfully made, and then ends with an epilogue where everything is sunshine and rainbows instead of focusing on the toll taken and the rebuilding of the kingdom at all. Just so terribly disappointing.
Really, what saves this book is that despite everything, the author writes well, and I am generally a fan of mythology based worlds enough to have that carry me, but mileage will vary and all that good stuff. I feel like if the author had just made the first book longer, got rid of the filler of this book, and mashed the two, we wouldn't have needed a duology and it would have made this book's content stronger. Did I hate this book? No. But will I read it again? Probably not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, Murder, and Torture
Moderate: Body horror and War
nimeneth's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture
Minor: War
gatorademachinegun's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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? N/A
5.0
Holy shit what a ride. Amazing read, the switch from 1st person to 3rd when changing character perspectives is something I’ve never read before but Judy I Lin, does it so well.
Absolutely loved this book, the characters are so real and the medium to fast pace kept me on the edge of my seat.
10/10 stunning cover, stunning contents
Absolutely loved this book, the characters are so real and the medium to fast pace kept me on the edge of my seat.
10/10 stunning cover, stunning contents
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Body horror, and Violence
Moderate: Death, Torture, and Death of parent
Minor: Death of parent and Alcohol
kou_'s review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
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? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Death, and Torture
whewtaewoon's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Child death and Death of parent
rtaire's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Death of parent
Moderate: Blood, War, and Murder
Minor: Animal death and Torture
greymalkin's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A very solid sequel to the first book and a good conclusion to the duology. It's so rare to have a 2 book series be complete, just about everything's a trilogy these days. But despite being two slim-ish volumes, there was plenty of action and worldbuilding.
The tea aspect was pushed a little bit further than the metaphysic really seemed to support (like when she put her magic in the soup- I mean sure, I can see the reasoning but it seemed a bit like a "I need this to happen so it does"). And the details seemed a bit more rushed and less complex than in the first book. But I suppose the pacing was different since she was on the run, so that fits.
I did enjoy the bridge of birds reference and it made me wish there were a few more of those stories brought into the books like that.
I did enjoy the bridge of birds reference and it made me wish there were a few more of those stories brought into the books like that.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, War, and Murder
Minor: Torture