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A review by dododenise
Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I really thought this book would get to me but sadly it never quite got there. The world building is amazing with a really intriguing magic system. I loved that the main character was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns. Everything was set up for this to blow me away.
Where it fell flat for me were the characters and the plot. The story starts quite cosy, which was unexpected but I liked. But then the world building expanded and I saw the possibilities of a big scale plot. The story gave me hints of that, but then immediately retreated again. Most of the story stayed pretty slow paced until there were weirdly short action scenes. That change of pace was disorienting and pulled me out.
None of the characters and their relationships were particularly interesting either. None of them grew close to my heart and their arcs weren’t enticing either.
This ended up being a great concept with an execution that fell flat for me.
Where it fell flat for me were the characters and the plot. The story starts quite cosy, which was unexpected but I liked. But then the world building expanded and I saw the possibilities of a big scale plot. The story gave me hints of that, but then immediately retreated again. Most of the story stayed pretty slow paced until there were weirdly short action scenes. That change of pace was disorienting and pulled me out.
None of the characters and their relationships were particularly interesting either. None of them grew close to my heart and their arcs weren’t enticing either.
This ended up being a great concept with an execution that fell flat for me.