Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Jade City

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Jade City by Fonda Lee

111 reviews

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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: Yes

I wanted to like this book way more than I did and I just didn't.
I wish I had read a review that said "this Godfather-esqe story", because then I would have been prepared for how politically based boring it was. This was 612 pages of politics, I read it all and the question still remains, "why should I care?". I don't know which side to root for because I just simply didn't care.

I really enjoyed the magic system and the martial arts/hand to hand combat scenes that were described.

I'm giving this 3 stars out of 5, I didn't really like it very much.

Content Warnings

bibliomania_express's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

sofiadanielle's review against another edition

3.75

challenging tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I feel conflicted about my thoughts on the book now that I’m done.. The pacing was both slow and fast at the same time (as in, exceptionally slow with the politics, but equally fast when there was actual action happening.) I have to confess that politics like this, pertaining to the clans, was not at all interesting to me.

As other reviews have stated, the strong point of the book is character interaction; I just feel that it was unfortunately drowned out by political plot that felt like trudging through mud for me.

Last 100 pages were the best part of the book for me, but that also means the previous ~400 pages seemed like a blur, not too memorable and feeling like the plot there could’ve been condensed.

I do think I’m interested in finding out what happened to the characters in the next two novels, but since this book took me so long to get through, I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.

Content Warnings

bubbly_lara's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was phenomenal! After starting it last year in summer and just not getting into the story, I picked this up again this year and good thing I did. This is very intriguing story about the island of Kekon, where Jade has been used by the Green Bones, an elite warrior people, to enhance their skills in ordee to protect the people from foreign rule. Two main clans emerged from a previous war and split the island between them. As tensions rise once more between the clans, we get to know the main players and uncover their plans and political intrigues. I'm super excited to continue the series see how everything unfolds. One last info: this is very adult in themes and plot.

Content Warnings

le_mur's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark tense 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: Yes

I didn’t mean to reread this in full, this quickly, right now; it wasn’t the plan; I don’t know how this happened. Just as addictive and compulsively readable as first read (and I’m a little concerned/ impressed at how closely my reading experience resembled my first read in how consumed I was, despite knowing everything that happens and without really picking up on deeper narratives, which I usually enjoy about rereads. I wasn’t shocked or surprised, yet I was somehow still as engrossed and on-edge). I really enjoyed reflecting on the distinct characterizations of the cast, but even that was mostly reinforcing what I tracked on first read. The obvious difference is the context of having definitive insight into their trajectories, having read the entire trilogy, but I think my thoughts and responses were still pretty congruent.

My main appreciation for this series as a whole, which I was able to digest more—while actually reading— upon reread, is how relevant the framing of perspective is to the narrative. The characters are so compelling (not to be mistaken with likable, heroic, or defendable), yet if this were another series, we could have easily been led by any of the other ‘antagonistic’ perspectives and feel just as compelled/ conflicted/ like their actions may be justifiable. It’s entirely plausible that I could have devoured this same plot framed as the story of an antihero—and that would have been the story of one of my most despised characters (a hatred which I can admit is probably more than a little irrational, seeing as it probably could be recontextualized without changing much about the character’s qualities. In this story, though, I legitimately had to brace myself every time we switched to that perspective). Even the aggravating development of protagonists felt motivated and human in their consistencies and inconsistencies. It’s hard to entirely love* or hate any character (*WITH ONE EXCEPTION. One beloved character). There’s a recurring motif of characters regarding each other with begrudging admiration, and I think that summarizes how I felt towards characters (cough, ****, cough) even in the midst of being appalled at certain actions. Really fascinating point for me to be so consumed by in a book that’s more plot-driven than what I typically gravitate toward. Characters are what make books for me, but I don’t need likable or lovable or even agreeable characters; I need interesting characters, and this series certainly delivers.

I will now attempt* to resist the impulse to immediately dive into Jade War (*specifically not an oath).

(((Also, the fact that I not only felt compelled to try, but actually delivered on writing out my thoughts in some semblance of organization? Unprecedented.)))

Content Warnings