hforsythe26 's review for:

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

3.5

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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For some reason, I had a hard time figuring out if this was a YA book before I picked it up. YA rarely works for me so I'm a bit happy that I didn't know beforehand, but this is definitely YA. However, it would have been unfortunate if I had missed out on such a delightful tale based solely on its age classification. I greatly enjoyed the Chinese fantasy woven throughout the story; it feels a bit like a fable which is right up my alley. The broad strokes really worked for me but the details just didn't come together how I would have liked. There's an almost dreamlike tone to the story that keeps the characters and their actions from feeling real. I didn't connect emotionally with the main character and found myself wanting to know more about the world and the lore while really not caring if the stories characters were even there at all. I didn't dislike any of them, they just didn't have the depth that I would hope for. The same problem plagued the plot and at the end I was left feeling like maybe nothing had actually happened and it had all been a very fast dream without enough detail. If this were an epic fantasy novel where the author had the time to really delve into the lore, flesh out the world building, and bring these characters to life how they deserve to be, then I would absolutely eat this up and leave no crumbs.