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12.7k reviews for:

Jade City

Fonda Lee

4.13 AVERAGE

adventurous tense fast-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
dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

definitely a slow read because of heavy worldbuilding, but i still loved it. i love hilo and anden and shae and i hope wen gets more attention in the sequel. also hoping for wayyyy more action next book
adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Something about this felt a little hallow to me. I think it has to do with both characterization and world building. For one thing, several members of our main cast are pretty one note. In particular, Hilo’s petulant quick temper gets really old really fast. Also, jade has many abilities but I don’t feel that I was given a solid understanding of what they are or what they can do. Ultimately, I found myself frequently asking what exactly is all this for? Why are they fighting and killing each other? The story wants us to think about the global politics but then gives us a narrative of petty gang violence. I probably won’t continue the series.


  • Characters: 5
  • Atmosphere/Setting: 4
  • Writing Style: 4
  • Plot: 5
  • Intrigue: 5
  • Logic/Relationships: 4
  • Enjoyment: 6 
dark emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Good story with some beautifully written sections. You can tell a lot of research and work went into the worldbuilding. Just wish some parts of the worldbuilding and mythos were cut shorter to help with pacing.
adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
adventurous tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Complex, sometimes brutal mafia story with magic. And a random spicy scene at the beginning. This was a super-hyped book, beloved by the SFF booktube community, which always makes me worry that I won't give it a proper chance, but I did enjoy this one. Certainly enough to keep going with the series. The world created here is very interesting: an insular island nation, 25 years after a war that liberated them from an imperial power, now being ruled in essence by a couple of mafia-style clans. Everyone has modern technology (cars, phones, guns, but no computers), but also there is the complication of magic jade stones that can give the right people powers. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, which unfortunately means that we don't really go super in depth with many of them. In particular, we don't get to learn too much about the villains of the story, which would have helped me get a bit more into it. The overall pacing is a tad slow, but kind of necessary due to the scope of the story and all of the characters. But then when the action scenes happen, they are crazy fast, and very well written (would be amazing to see as a movie or TV show). Definitely looking forward to seeing how the story progresses in part two...