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A review by m00dreads
Jade War by Fonda Lee
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Finished the last 70% of this book in the last 16 hours. What a rush. I was this close to having a personal vendetta against Ms. Fonda Lee. But ah well, Wen is alive and my boy Andy is going to med school.
Naturally, this installment was bigger in both scope and scale than its predecessor. Lee zooms out of Kekon and pans to cities from other nations in her fictional map, crafting them with the same sharp-eyed care.
Stakes have been raised on all fronts so expect a lot more closed-door maneuvering here and significantly less action than Jade City. Very heavy on the politics, which, head’s up, might put off some readers. For my part though, I applaud Fonda Lee for having such a profound understanding of how society’s macros trickle down and affect even the most quotidian detail of life. Her grasp on class, gender, race, economics, and politics is sure and steady; and it manifests in the tightly-woven ruling systems and social structures of her work. You know it’s world-building par excellence when you could probably write a whole paper on text-specific niches. Like the correlation between Green Bone isolationism and the rise of jade’s demand in the black market. Or a discourse on the regulation of jade: should the people whose cultural and ethnic identities to which the material is invariably tied, have sole proprietorship over its production and distribution, or is jade first and foremost a natural resource that should be relegated to the free market? I could also go on about the implications of war, diaspora, so much more, and spend hours nerding out about everything 😭
This was also the first fantasy I’ve read that saw a main character get an abortion, and Fonda Lee did not drop the ball. Impeccable execution and character work right there.
The world she had created is in 4k, but even for me it was too dense at times—a quality exacerbated by the rapid changes in POV across chapters. I would say this falls behind Jade City in terms of flow and snappiness; it would’ve transitioned better had information been diffused sufficiently from the very first book. You get flash-banged with a lot of new names, new pieces of history, that sometimes it felt staggering. On the other hand, the sheer ambition and scale that Jade War was able to achieve is what solidifies the series as an urban epic.
Naturally, this installment was bigger in both scope and scale than its predecessor. Lee zooms out of Kekon and pans to cities from other nations in her fictional map, crafting them with the same sharp-eyed care.
Stakes have been raised on all fronts so expect a lot more closed-door maneuvering here and significantly less action than Jade City. Very heavy on the politics, which, head’s up, might put off some readers. For my part though, I applaud Fonda Lee for having such a profound understanding of how society’s macros trickle down and affect even the most quotidian detail of life. Her grasp on class, gender, race, economics, and politics is sure and steady; and it manifests in the tightly-woven ruling systems and social structures of her work. You know it’s world-building par excellence when you could probably write a whole paper on text-specific niches. Like the correlation between Green Bone isolationism and the rise of jade’s demand in the black market. Or a discourse on the regulation of jade: should the people whose cultural and ethnic identities to which the material is invariably tied, have sole proprietorship over its production and distribution, or is jade first and foremost a natural resource that should be relegated to the free market? I could also go on about the implications of war, diaspora, so much more, and spend hours nerding out about everything 😭
This was also the first fantasy I’ve read that saw a main character get an abortion, and Fonda Lee did not drop the ball. Impeccable execution and character work right there.
The world she had created is in 4k, but even for me it was too dense at times—a quality exacerbated by the rapid changes in POV across chapters. I would say this falls behind Jade City in terms of flow and snappiness; it would’ve transitioned better had information been diffused sufficiently from the very first book. You get flash-banged with a lot of new names, new pieces of history, that sometimes it felt staggering. On the other hand, the sheer ambition and scale that Jade War was able to achieve is what solidifies the series as an urban epic.