Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Jade War

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rnbhargava's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing 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? Yes

4.5

I absolutely loved this second book. Its main minor drawback is the cast with point of view chapters being perhaps a bit too large. That said, I was thrilled by the twists and turns, both in terms of action and character based ones. It really plays with the emotions masterfully.

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maelikesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

New favourite series

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mikarala's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Book 2 was not as engrossing as the first installment in the series. Whereas the first book takes place over the course of several months and largely sticks to the location of Janloon city as the main setting, the scope of this book is much larger. It seems to take place over the course of 4 years or so, and introduces overseas locations to take the story to a more global scale. It's clear one of Lee's main focuses with this book was to expound upon the geopolitical aspects of the Green Bone saga, presumably setting up a lot of action to come in the third book.

However, this expansion sometimes came at the expense of the story, in my opinion. In particular, there were sections in the middle of the story where I kept noticing chapters would end with a sort of cliff-hanger, big problem for the POV character, then we would move on to the next character, and by the time we came back, the problem had mostly resolved itself. There was often a bit too much exposition at the start of chapters to explain everything that had changed with the characters since the last time we had seen them.

Pacing issues aside, I do think this book is really well-plotted. As with the first installment, Lee does a great job of introducing conflicts and developing the motivations of different characters so that these elements converge in a very satisfying and believable way at the climax. While the middle may have felt a bit more meandering and you had to work a bit harder as a reader to get to that point, when it came it was a great culmination of the various elements of the story.

On top of that, I just really enjoy the characters in this series. They aren't typical heroes and arguably their intentions aren't really altruistic, but I think Lee does a great job of making you root for them anyways. They are flawed, but compellingly believable. I think this comese down to the great job Lee does with world-building and establishing the cultural norms of Kekon, so that even despite the extremely foreign ethical code the characters operate with, the reader can easily understand their motivations.

So, while I didn't love this as much as book 1, I am still very excited to start the final book in the trilogy. This series really has some of the best world-building I've ever encountered in a fantasy series, and it's backstopped by interesting characters and very tightly written plots.

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cognitivedisaster's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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? Yes

4.75

This is tied as the best read of the year along with Dune

Take everything good about Jade War, and triple it. The characters are amazing. The world is amazing. The plot is amazing. The intrigue is amazing. The character relationships are better than any book I've ever read.

The main characters went from not greatpeople to fucking monsters. Even with their horrible actions, their self-justification makes it even more twisted. Even when you hate them though, you'll still root for them and cry for them*

The world is somehow even better than the last book, with a new country, and with it, new perspectives on how the main charcters affect the world

If Jade War was the godfather in a fantasy setting, this is the godfather 2 in a fantasy setting (especially with the arc of <Shae>)

*except for <Hilo>. Fuck that guy

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