A review by mandersdraws
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I really wanted to love this book (I mean, allow me to judge by its cover for a moment - it's BEAUTIFUL), but this just didn't resonate with me the way I hoped. 

I like the premise a lot, and the world building, the setting, the tie in with Chinese mythology and the legend of Chang'e, were all really inspiring. I think the plot of the book is pretty interesting and I enjoyed the path of the story overall. 

My only issue with this book is just how much time Xingyin, the main character and narrator, spends explaining her own feelings and thought process. I feel like Xingyin tells me instead of showing me how she feels, and it often felt repetitive to me. There's a love story that pulled on my heart strings at first, but then started to bore me, because the confused feelings of the protagonist were repeated in the narration, at great length. Jealousy between the male love interests also came up with some frequency, and got old quickly.

Xingyin has no shortage of adventures but the narration in between them kind of bogged down the pacing of the book. I got the audiobook version of this and Natalie Nautus did a wonderful job as narrator, for what it's worth, but I wonder whether the pacing might have felt better if I had read the text instead of listening to it. I am curious about the next installment though, so maybe I'll find out someday if I decide to pick up the sequel!