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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
adventurous
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:
Yes
emotional
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
It has parts I really like but also parts I really hate so it gets a mid score.
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A queer retelling of The Legend of the White Snake. It's technically YA but I would place it at the far end (16-18 y/o) of that range because of the sexual content. It was closed door/fade-to-black and the lead up to those scenes were not explicitly spicy but it was enough that I was slightly uncomfy.
That said, it made up for that with great chemistry between the main characters and well fleshed out characters. I worried that I would hate the younger sister archetype character but she grew on me over the course of the book.
Loses a star and a bit due to pacing issues in the second half. Things travel at a pretty steady pace until suddenly there's a ton of action and reveal after reveal. It then regained most of a star for the ending. It was stunning. I know it follows the ending of the myth fairly closely but I thought it was beautifully written. There's no easy resolution, it feels like at the end we have earned a happy ending.
Would recommend for fans of Asian inspired fantasy, fans of retellings, fans of queer YA, and I am not a romantasy girly but I suspect this would satisfy anyone looking for some romantasy light.
That said, it made up for that with great chemistry between the main characters and well fleshed out characters. I worried that I would hate the younger sister archetype character but she grew on me over the course of the book.
Loses a star and a bit due to pacing issues in the second half. Things travel at a pretty steady pace until suddenly there's a ton of action and reveal after reveal. It then regained most of a star for the ending. It was stunning. I know it follows the ending of the myth fairly closely but I thought it was beautifully written. There's no easy resolution, it feels like at the end we have earned a happy ending.
Would recommend for fans of Asian inspired fantasy, fans of retellings, fans of queer YA, and I am not a romantasy girly but I suspect this would satisfy anyone looking for some romantasy light.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty
adventurous
challenging
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:
Complicated
This was so much better than I had anticipated, and I thought it sounded pretty good to begin with. This gave me similar vibes as The Emperor and The Endless Palace by Justinian Huang, but YA, without the dreaded existentialism or multiple timelines, and with a much more happy ending. Xian and Zhen are such interesting and complex characters. They really hold up this story. The plot was super unique and intriguing as well. There's drama, mystery, politics, and romance. This story is definitely not one note, but so layered and with so much depth. I usually have different expectations for YA stories. It's a different genre and target audience, after all, so I just did not expect everything that I got with this story. I had so much fun and felt so much emotion while reading this. It's a journey and such an amazing one at that. This deserves way more hype, and I HIGHLY recommend this to everyone!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
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:
Yes
Let me start off by saying: I have mixed feelings about this book.
Mainly because I feel like this book is actually 2 books in one, and I felt that one part was done much, much better than the other. On the scale of myth retellings, Legend of the White Snake falls somewhere between romantasy and historical fantasy. There's a ton of embedded details about ancient Chinese culture, everything from proper tea steeping techniques to architecture to board games. This part felt a bit info-dumpy at times but was ultimately fascinating. I loved how vividly Lee brought the city of Changle to life; I'm obviously not the end-all-be-all on authenticity, but I usually am the first person to flag anachronisms and I couldn't really find any. The language is plainspoken but nobody in here speaks like a modern day teen, so huge points to Lee for that (it's one of my biggest beefs with YA historical of any flavor).
I also liked Xian, the young prince desperate to save his mother's life, and Zhen, his love interest. When Xian was a boy, a white snake bit his mother, causing her agonizing pain and paralysis; a magical pearl was meant to cure her, but just as Xian found the pearl, a white snake ate it. Unbeknownst to Xian, the pearl transformed the snake into a snake spirit, capable of taking human form. Years later, when a quest to cure his mother takes Xian to the city of Changle, he and snake spirit Zhen cross paths.
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting the dual POV of Xian and Zhen, nor the way I felt abruptly thrust into both stories. Everything until Zhen and Xian's meet cute felt very rocky -- there are flashbacks and time skips that aren't delineated well, dreams sequences that I am still unsure happened or not, and awkward introductions to side characters who later become important. But I did like the characters themselves, and, as stated, I loved the world Lee built, so I kept reading. After the meet cute in the palace stables, the plot itself felt much smoother.
But the thing I didn't buy into as the book kept going was the romance. It feels very insta-lust, and aside from the fact that both have rather hazy memories of their first encounter years earlier (Xian as a boy, Zhen as an ordinary snake), there was very little on-page connection. Let's just say that when a love confession happens, it was out of left field. For all the focus on lust, it felt like it almost wanted to be New Adult instead of YA (NA is a category I desperately WISH traditional publishing would embrace in lieu of smutty-ish YA books, but that's my own personal aside). I'm not saying a YA romance needs to be sweet and gushing -- like, please please offer all the flavors of YA romance for people to choose their own preferences -- but I guess I just wanted to feel the romance develop more. I wanted something to root for when the characters inevitably ended up at odds.
And, romance aside, I actually DID like both Zhen and Xian separately. The romance not working, to me, felt like an editing issue. Less repetitive passages, more time for the characters to interact. A longer timeline (it reads like less than a week in my version, with little temporal markers to tell us it's longer than that). A more earned resolution in the third act. Reading it as a historical fantasy-flavored myth retelling, I really enjoyed it. Reading it for the romance? Meh. I will still pick up another Sher Lee book, but I wasn't blown away like I was hoping.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), and Sher Lee for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!
Mainly because I feel like this book is actually 2 books in one, and I felt that one part was done much, much better than the other. On the scale of myth retellings, Legend of the White Snake falls somewhere between romantasy and historical fantasy. There's a ton of embedded details about ancient Chinese culture, everything from proper tea steeping techniques to architecture to board games. This part felt a bit info-dumpy at times but was ultimately fascinating. I loved how vividly Lee brought the city of Changle to life; I'm obviously not the end-all-be-all on authenticity, but I usually am the first person to flag anachronisms and I couldn't really find any. The language is plainspoken but nobody in here speaks like a modern day teen, so huge points to Lee for that (it's one of my biggest beefs with YA historical of any flavor).
I also liked Xian, the young prince desperate to save his mother's life, and Zhen, his love interest. When Xian was a boy, a white snake bit his mother, causing her agonizing pain and paralysis; a magical pearl was meant to cure her, but just as Xian found the pearl, a white snake ate it. Unbeknownst to Xian, the pearl transformed the snake into a snake spirit, capable of taking human form. Years later, when a quest to cure his mother takes Xian to the city of Changle, he and snake spirit Zhen cross paths.
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting the dual POV of Xian and Zhen, nor the way I felt abruptly thrust into both stories. Everything until Zhen and Xian's meet cute felt very rocky -- there are flashbacks and time skips that aren't delineated well, dreams sequences that I am still unsure happened or not, and awkward introductions to side characters who later become important. But I did like the characters themselves, and, as stated, I loved the world Lee built, so I kept reading. After the meet cute in the palace stables, the plot itself felt much smoother.
But the thing I didn't buy into as the book kept going was the romance. It feels very insta-lust, and aside from the fact that both have rather hazy memories of their first encounter years earlier (Xian as a boy, Zhen as an ordinary snake), there was very little on-page connection. Let's just say that when a love confession happens, it was out of left field. For all the focus on lust, it felt like it almost wanted to be New Adult instead of YA (NA is a category I desperately WISH traditional publishing would embrace in lieu of smutty-ish YA books, but that's my own personal aside). I'm not saying a YA romance needs to be sweet and gushing -- like, please please offer all the flavors of YA romance for people to choose their own preferences -- but I guess I just wanted to feel the romance develop more. I wanted something to root for when the characters inevitably ended up at odds.
And, romance aside, I actually DID like both Zhen and Xian separately. The romance not working, to me, felt like an editing issue. Less repetitive passages, more time for the characters to interact. A longer timeline (it reads like less than a week in my version, with little temporal markers to tell us it's longer than that). A more earned resolution in the third act. Reading it as a historical fantasy-flavored myth retelling, I really enjoyed it. Reading it for the romance? Meh. I will still pick up another Sher Lee book, but I wasn't blown away like I was hoping.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), and Sher Lee for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
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:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
To start, thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
I’ll preface my review by admitting that I’m not especially familiar with danmei as a genre or the white snake legend the story is based on, so if there were particular tropes or beats I was supposed to look out for, I wasn’t aware of if this story was hitting them or not. The story was cohesive and overall definitely felt very fairytale like, but I had some issues with it as well.
To start with the positive, I was really fond of Prince Xian and Qing as characters. Qing especially, I adored for her personality and was excited for every scene we got with her. I wish more time was spent exploring her character and relationships. Xian, too, was complex in a way that made it easy to grow attached of him.
Unfortunately, there were also a lot of things about this story that didn’t work for me also. It took me a long time to finish this novel because up until the last third, I just didn’t feel engaged with the story. Somehow, despite how fast-paced it is, I felt like the story was dragging and simultaneously, like things were being rushed along too quickly to be able to get attached to any of the characters very deeply.
The villian especially needed more fleshing because I didn’t see anything about him coming and not in a good way.
The romance aspect was very insta-love which simply isn’t my cup of tea. I could see two young men growing attracted to each other quickly and having a budding romance but when one’s internal monologue mentions leaving the city they met in after only two weeks when by the end, we are supposed to believe they have this soul level connection and being totally devoted to each other even past death, it becomes a little hard to suspend my disbelief.
The way the Xian and Shen cared for each other was truly beautiful but it all felt very surface level and I wished the story had dug deeper, given them more time to develop, and given the reader more to chew on. This book felt like it could have benefited from another 50-100 pages somewhere in the middle to build the tension between them and the conflict looming over their head.
I’ll preface my review by admitting that I’m not especially familiar with danmei as a genre or the white snake legend the story is based on, so if there were particular tropes or beats I was supposed to look out for, I wasn’t aware of if this story was hitting them or not. The story was cohesive and overall definitely felt very fairytale like, but I had some issues with it as well.
To start with the positive, I was really fond of Prince Xian and Qing as characters. Qing especially, I adored for her personality and was excited for every scene we got with her. I wish more time was spent exploring her character and relationships. Xian, too, was complex in a way that made it easy to grow attached of him.
Unfortunately, there were also a lot of things about this story that didn’t work for me also. It took me a long time to finish this novel because up until the last third, I just didn’t feel engaged with the story. Somehow, despite how fast-paced it is, I felt like the story was dragging and simultaneously, like things were being rushed along too quickly to be able to get attached to any of the characters very deeply.
The villian especially needed more fleshing because I didn’t see anything about him coming and not in a good way.
The romance aspect was very insta-love which simply isn’t my cup of tea. I could see two young men growing attracted to each other quickly and having a budding romance but when one’s internal monologue mentions leaving the city they met in after only two weeks when by the end, we are supposed to believe they have this soul level connection and being totally devoted to each other even past death, it becomes a little hard to suspend my disbelief.
The way the Xian and Shen cared for each other was truly beautiful but it all felt very surface level and I wished the story had dug deeper, given them more time to develop, and given the reader more to chew on. This book felt like it could have benefited from another 50-100 pages somewhere in the middle to build the tension between them and the conflict looming over their head.