A review by cyndqls
Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen

4.0

Thank you NetGalley and Viking Books for Young Readers for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I heard this was a girls in STEM book and I was immediately intrigued, even though I am sometimes a little hesitant towards YA titles. I did ultimately really like this and found it well-paced and engaging, though I did think the chapters ran a little long for my liking. Though she is at times frustrating, I felt that Ying was fully realized (I mean—she’s 18, and a little stupid, and going through it, it’s fine). I also liked the other characters that Chen introduced; Ye-Kan’s character arc was good to see in particular. 

The overall plot was interesting and I’m definitely interested in seeing how the rest of the story will unfold in the sequel. There’s some neat things happening and I liked the worldbuilding a lot, though I’ve always thought silkpunk is an interesting genre. Though there are no real dragons in this, reading about the engineers’ work was fun. I was pleasantly surprised at some of the turns this took and while I didn’t care much for the tiny romance subplot, I also didn’t mind it. 

There were some bumps at the start but I think they evened out as the story progressed and I had fun reading it! My biggest complaint is that I felt like the chapters were all a bit too long and could’ve been cut in half (even if it would’ve doubled the chapter count) but that’s just a matter of personal preference.