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A review by evermoreau
Jade War by Fonda Lee
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.5
there is a lot i could say about why i hated the experience of reading this book as much as i did, but i honestly don’t have the energy for it. jade war has taken enough of my time 😭 i will say though that i took half a star just for the treatment of women, because at this point i’m not willing to listen to anyone saying that it gets better as the story progresses. from these two first books it is clear that fonda lee cares more about making her male characters look cool and seem multi dimensional than about her female characters even fully existing in the story at all. here are some random points of annoyance which i noted down as i was reading:
- feeling lan's absence was probably purposeful on the author's part, but i didn't miss him in the way of being sad he's gone because of a hole he left in everyone’s lives but in the way that he was apparently the only one capable of snapping shae and hilo out of being irritating. also i know within the story it’s been years but it’s still upsetting just how little attention he was paid, his haunting of the narrative should have been turned up a dozen notches
- speaking of the time line WHAT IS WITH THESE TIME SKIPS! the story ended up feeling so disjointed because of the constant jumps which weren’t otherwise made clear like it would literally just be somebody saying “it has been xyz months since this happened” and i was left speechless everytime bc damn these characters really don’t accomplish shit in all that time
- narratively speaking shae was punished more for having an abortion than hilo for murdering a woman and kidnapping her child??
- that one time wen was described as being swollen bc in both breasts and stomach bc she got pregnant again while she was still nursing Are you ready to die kaul hilo
- i liked the ending i guess but that is just to say i wasn’t bored to death and constantly annoyed while reading some chunks of it & that might be bc a lot of the focus was on wen and anden MY GOATS
- why is everybody so naive? like seriously why do they never have a back up plan or anything other than hilo being intimidating and crazy? is he gonna crazy his way into killing the pillar of the mountain like he has been “plotting” for two books?? it sent me so bad when the ending just pulled the “we need to back out of this plan” thing twice like omg one thing goes wrong and yall are left clueless
- the ending of book 1 actually intrigued me regarding anden & hilo but it was all for nothing bc jade war blew it. hilo came to espania after 3 years and anden was just like oh ok & his internal conflict was minimally shown. ig it was sad that he gave up his bisexual situationship for the sake of the clan but at that point i did not gaf anymore
- niko better grow up to kill hilo for what he did to his mother i’m so serious
- feeling lan's absence was probably purposeful on the author's part, but i didn't miss him in the way of being sad he's gone because of a hole he left in everyone’s lives but in the way that he was apparently the only one capable of snapping shae and hilo out of being irritating. also i know within the story it’s been years but it’s still upsetting just how little attention he was paid, his haunting of the narrative should have been turned up a dozen notches
- speaking of the time line WHAT IS WITH THESE TIME SKIPS! the story ended up feeling so disjointed because of the constant jumps which weren’t otherwise made clear like it would literally just be somebody saying “it has been xyz months since this happened” and i was left speechless everytime bc damn these characters really don’t accomplish shit in all that time
- narratively speaking shae was punished more for having an abortion than hilo for murdering a woman and kidnapping her child??
- that one time wen was described as being swollen bc in both breasts and stomach bc she got pregnant again while she was still nursing Are you ready to die kaul hilo
- i liked the ending i guess but that is just to say i wasn’t bored to death and constantly annoyed while reading some chunks of it & that might be bc a lot of the focus was on wen and anden MY GOATS
- why is everybody so naive? like seriously why do they never have a back up plan or anything other than hilo being intimidating and crazy? is he gonna crazy his way into killing the pillar of the mountain like he has been “plotting” for two books?? it sent me so bad when the ending just pulled the “we need to back out of this plan” thing twice like omg one thing goes wrong and yall are left clueless
- the ending of book 1 actually intrigued me regarding anden & hilo but it was all for nothing bc jade war blew it. hilo came to espania after 3 years and anden was just like oh ok & his internal conflict was minimally shown. ig it was sad that he gave up his bisexual situationship for the sake of the clan but at that point i did not gaf anymore
- niko better grow up to kill hilo for what he did to his mother i’m so serious