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A review by themoonwholistens
Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee
5.0
I will never get over this series. This review will never give justice to this book but I'll try anyway.
The Green Bone Saga is heavily political, brutal, intense, fight scenes that will give you a heart attack… but also heart-warming, emotional, detail-oriented and sincere down to it’s core. It’s as much about family as it is about everything else related to it. The most satisfyingly beautiful and painful conclusion I could have ever asked for. If you want something emotionally investing, I think it is an understatement to say that I highly recommend. My new favorite series of all-time.
This series quite literally has the best character dynamics I could ever want and Fonda Lee serves it all on a silver platter complete complexity and heart that was so addicting to read on every level. Every tragic point had meaning and purpose, and was never done for the sake of tragedy.
I never would have thought that FL could deepen this world more than she did in Jade War but she did. She really did. The expansion of the application of jade from traditional to modern opened up so many possibilities each book that by the time we got to Jade Legacy, I felt so tense whenever we started a new chapter. In fact, Fonda Lee makes the space of Janloon and Kekon feel just as vibrant and vivid as the likes of Stormlight Archives and Mistborn, if not more. From the details on the perspectives of Jade = Lucky and the importance of “losing face”… I feel like it is so rare to see Asian values applied into an Epic Fantasy on a scale as largely as The Green Bone Saga did. A genre filled with friendship tales and otherworldly settings, I have never read any kind of Epic Fantasy that so prominently displayed family as the center point through and through.
Fonda Lee has carved has carved years off my soul but at the same time put me through 10 lifetimes. I will never have enough words to compress all of my thoughts and feelings without just narrating to you the whole 3-book story… but I will try my best anyway because Jade Legacy deserves all the words I can muster out of my body.
Honestly, the most heart-wrenching part of this book is how you watch the characters you love go through time. You would think that it would make you feel less attached to just be told what happens over the various time skips. But Fonda Lee manages to do the complete opposite by so efficiently packing information/details into the crevices of your mind, milestone per human milestone. Only for you to look back at what you read and realize how creatively she has wrapped you around each character’s story to make it feel like you’ve already read a whole novel about them alone. It is such an unconventional tool to use for an Fantasy novel but Fonda Lee more than pulled it off. The Kauls and the people around them go through a lot in the span of a chapter of Jade Legacy, that every person who has survived this book really does deserve a long hug for the rollercoaster that I know you’ve gone through.
One of the best (if not the best) written character developments of a big cast that I have come across. Incredibly nuanced with no one falling into stereotypical heroes and villains, they all just felt like people. People that you have known for what it feels like decades with the care that Fonda Lee took in crafting all of them to fit a purpose in the story. Every change of perspective has it’s own unique voice and subtle change in writing style that make them feel so well-realized. No matter how briefly you get to see Kekon through their eyes. I have never been so invested in so many characters at once and never been so affected by even the most minor of characters. They all felt so alive in my head that I don’t quite know what I was doing before I met them. Filled with an uncountable number of upfrontly flawed characters… it only made The Green Bone Saga that much more emotionally captivating.
[ STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK ]
[ LAST CHANCE… STOP READING. CONTEXT SPOILERS AHEAD. ]
Hilo has been a personal favorite since Jade City but his development was so gradual but also incredibly hard hitting to watch by the end of this novel that he’s turned into probably my new favorite character for the last decade. One of the most well-written and most nuanced characters that I have met on page. Petrik said it best and I couldn’t have done it any better. It is a feat to make readers understand questionable decisions that they have never have to make in a story and still love every inch of the characters that made them.
That isn't to say that the other characters in this series do not go through the same amount of development, they all do. It's just that the longer I think about this series, the more in awe I am of the things that Hilo had to deal with all at once as the Pillar.
The parallels between Hilo and Mada could not have been any more glaringly obvious. Their difference, however, is not that Hilo is able to illicit both respect and love in the same breath, they both do. What made Hilo different from Mada was that in his long reign as a Pillar, he never forgot that he was leading human beings. How it translated to the respective people they are charged with showed so noticeably shown in the crowds that gathered in front of their homes. In the end, the message to me was how leadership is not a solitary job nor is it a solitary position that can be properly done without compassion and humanity. That having all the most strategic alliances in the room does not compare to having one good friend.
Lott’s character was the best representation of Hilo’s influence on a single person. A concrete example of how you win people over by simply caring. To write a relatively simple character that manages to reflect the developments of the other characters while still being his own person in a story with at least 10 different perspectives, is amazing. It was so refreshing every time he was on the page. I don’t know when I started thinking of Anden as Kaul Anden instead of Emery Anden, having only realized it myself when Ayt Mada referred to him as Kaul-jen in the end. That itself is another example of the leaps in character development Fonda Lee manages without forgetting the journey it took to get to each one of them.
I say time and time again that what astounds me with the writing throughout the series is how FL shows the effects of the conflict from the Kauls to the Lantern men to the level of jade thieves. The highest tier to the lowest on this fantastical social ladder that is reminiscent of the most extreme values of various Asian Cultures with all the nuance and complexities that go with it. Despite being centered around the Kauls, it’s actually funny how none of the books ever ended or began with a perspective from a Kaul (even then, Anden isn’t technically a Kaul by blood). I think it’s the book’s little reminder about how even though we revolve around their story, it doesn’t start or end with them. With how the story is written post-Many Nations War and promises so many possibilities from Niko, it certainly felt that way too.
The themes of this story covers many things from leadership, solitude, power, and fate. But in the end, I like to think it all boils down to family. The Green Bone Saga is very accurately pitched as a modern epic urban fantasy family saga. And even though it goes through the biggest rollercoaster of a politically epic but emotional plot I have ever encountered… it does so while keeping in mind the one solid beating core that connects every message that comes across and is the underlying reason so many of us feel so attached: Family. That family extends to the people who have trusted you to lead them.
I have truly never been so emotionally devastated and hungover over any book in my life.
Each book in this series is so unique on their own and has such a distinctive atmosphere that I like to jokingly describe as the 3 stages of grief: Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy, respectively. This last installment most especially tackles the brutal stereotype of clans and gangs while showing their vulnerable sides. Which one of the most clever and heart-wrenching decisions Fonda Lee has ever made. My emotional hangover will never be appeased. You see the world evolving and the characters grow. You experience with them the pain of loss and time but also the simple, little joys of life and family. You see how pain changes people but it doesn’t make them irredeemable, just like what Lan believes.
I wasn’t sure about what to feel about Niko at first but I was amused that the way people viewed him in the story, was exactly the way I did too. In that way, they reflect how a lot of us would act in the face of the conflict that arise. Which was one of the best tools that Fonda Lee employed and it made me see myself in the story, even just a nameless floating entity within the world. Change is always scary at first but the book clearly sends the message of how the story wouldn’t have been possible if Hilo wasn’t different from Lan and how they wouldn’t be able to adapt in the future if Niko wasn’t different from Hilo. Niko is not the best fighter or the smartest, especially compared to Hilo and Lan. But he would know to maneuver the era of the clans into an evolving and more technologically advanced world with all the calculation that you make when you've had to face the extremes of cruelty and power head on. I felt the pain break something deep within me when Shae described how Niko looked when that scene happened and it made me realize that at the end, he's still just a kid in the face of the people who raised him. Cruelty and power is everywhere, as this series never fails to make us forget, but the difference of humanity is in when and how you use it. That it is compassion and love from the people surrounding us that shapes us.
It is so unapologetically rooted in its east asian and southeast asian influences without ever feeling the need to water itself down. This series will forever have a special place in my heart because how artfully it was written both technically and emotionally. My tension and awe while reading this had me flipping pages through tears~ This series has debunked so many things I thought I knew about storytelling while expertly applying everything I didn’t know I wanted but needed in a book. I’m going to end this review for now because the only thing I want to do is reread the whole series. I respect Fonda Lee on a whole other level for the emotions she has made me feel that felt every bit rewarding and beautifully painful.
Fonda Lee is a master at propelling a story forward on different levels all at once. I will never get over how well-curated and realized all of these characters are in a vividly and artfully designed setting that feels so real in the mind of it's readers.
Some things to leave you with that I didn't get to say in this very long review:
1. A part of fate is what you choose for yourself
2. Sincerity and compassion go a long way
3. A difference in beliefs does not make you incompatible friends
4. Family is chosen, even those by blood
5. The worst punishment you can receive, worse than death, is being forgotten and deemed insignificant.
6. Even if you have to go to war the next day, you make time to have dinner with your family—
A part of my mind, spirit, and soul will forever be having brunch with the Kauls in the Twice Lucky~
— 5.0 —
⇢ content warnings// Graphic Violence, Death, Torture, Murder, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarraige
⤜ pre-read review ⤛
happy release day to pain
“It was Kaul Hilo's great talent. He could have a single ordinary conversation with a man and make him loyal for life.”
The Green Bone Saga is heavily political, brutal, intense, fight scenes that will give you a heart attack… but also heart-warming, emotional, detail-oriented and sincere down to it’s core. It’s as much about family as it is about everything else related to it. The most satisfyingly beautiful and painful conclusion I could have ever asked for. If you want something emotionally investing, I think it is an understatement to say that I highly recommend. My new favorite series of all-time.
This series quite literally has the best character dynamics I could ever want and Fonda Lee serves it all on a silver platter complete complexity and heart that was so addicting to read on every level. Every tragic point had meaning and purpose, and was never done for the sake of tragedy.
I never would have thought that FL could deepen this world more than she did in Jade War but she did. She really did. The expansion of the application of jade from traditional to modern opened up so many possibilities each book that by the time we got to Jade Legacy, I felt so tense whenever we started a new chapter. In fact, Fonda Lee makes the space of Janloon and Kekon feel just as vibrant and vivid as the likes of Stormlight Archives and Mistborn, if not more. From the details on the perspectives of Jade = Lucky and the importance of “losing face”… I feel like it is so rare to see Asian values applied into an Epic Fantasy on a scale as largely as The Green Bone Saga did. A genre filled with friendship tales and otherworldly settings, I have never read any kind of Epic Fantasy that so prominently displayed family as the center point through and through.
“You'd think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn't work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.”
Fonda Lee has carved has carved years off my soul but at the same time put me through 10 lifetimes. I will never have enough words to compress all of my thoughts and feelings without just narrating to you the whole 3-book story… but I will try my best anyway because Jade Legacy deserves all the words I can muster out of my body.
Honestly, the most heart-wrenching part of this book is how you watch the characters you love go through time. You would think that it would make you feel less attached to just be told what happens over the various time skips. But Fonda Lee manages to do the complete opposite by so efficiently packing information/details into the crevices of your mind, milestone per human milestone. Only for you to look back at what you read and realize how creatively she has wrapped you around each character’s story to make it feel like you’ve already read a whole novel about them alone. It is such an unconventional tool to use for an Fantasy novel but Fonda Lee more than pulled it off. The Kauls and the people around them go through a lot in the span of a chapter of Jade Legacy, that every person who has survived this book really does deserve a long hug for the rollercoaster that I know you’ve gone through.
“Even goals that seem out of reach can be accomplished with the help of the right friends.”
One of the best (if not the best) written character developments of a big cast that I have come across. Incredibly nuanced with no one falling into stereotypical heroes and villains, they all just felt like people. People that you have known for what it feels like decades with the care that Fonda Lee took in crafting all of them to fit a purpose in the story. Every change of perspective has it’s own unique voice and subtle change in writing style that make them feel so well-realized. No matter how briefly you get to see Kekon through their eyes. I have never been so invested in so many characters at once and never been so affected by even the most minor of characters. They all felt so alive in my head that I don’t quite know what I was doing before I met them. Filled with an uncountable number of upfrontly flawed characters… it only made The Green Bone Saga that much more emotionally captivating.
[ STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK ]
[ LAST CHANCE… STOP READING. CONTEXT SPOILERS AHEAD. ]
“We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”
Hilo has been a personal favorite since Jade City but his development was so gradual but also incredibly hard hitting to watch by the end of this novel that he’s turned into probably my new favorite character for the last decade. One of the most well-written and most nuanced characters that I have met on page. Petrik said it best and I couldn’t have done it any better. It is a feat to make readers understand questionable decisions that they have never have to make in a story and still love every inch of the characters that made them.
That isn't to say that the other characters in this series do not go through the same amount of development, they all do. It's just that the longer I think about this series, the more in awe I am of the things that Hilo had to deal with all at once as the Pillar.
“After all these years, is there anything you believe I won’t do if I have to?”
The parallels between Hilo and Mada could not have been any more glaringly obvious. Their difference, however, is not that Hilo is able to illicit both respect and love in the same breath, they both do. What made Hilo different from Mada was that in his long reign as a Pillar, he never forgot that he was leading human beings. How it translated to the respective people they are charged with showed so noticeably shown in the crowds that gathered in front of their homes. In the end, the message to me was how leadership is not a solitary job nor is it a solitary position that can be properly done without compassion and humanity. That having all the most strategic alliances in the room does not compare to having one good friend.
Lott’s character was the best representation of Hilo’s influence on a single person. A concrete example of how you win people over by simply caring. To write a relatively simple character that manages to reflect the developments of the other characters while still being his own person in a story with at least 10 different perspectives, is amazing. It was so refreshing every time he was on the page. I don’t know when I started thinking of Anden as Kaul Anden instead of Emery Anden, having only realized it myself when Ayt Mada referred to him as Kaul-jen in the end. That itself is another example of the leaps in character development Fonda Lee manages without forgetting the journey it took to get to each one of them.
“Jade had meaning because of the type of person one had to become to wear it.”
I say time and time again that what astounds me with the writing throughout the series is how FL shows the effects of the conflict from the Kauls to the Lantern men to the level of jade thieves. The highest tier to the lowest on this fantastical social ladder that is reminiscent of the most extreme values of various Asian Cultures with all the nuance and complexities that go with it. Despite being centered around the Kauls, it’s actually funny how none of the books ever ended or began with a perspective from a Kaul (even then, Anden isn’t technically a Kaul by blood). I think it’s the book’s little reminder about how even though we revolve around their story, it doesn’t start or end with them. With how the story is written post-Many Nations War and promises so many possibilities from Niko, it certainly felt that way too.
“Being green has greater significance than the abilities a person gains.”
The themes of this story covers many things from leadership, solitude, power, and fate. But in the end, I like to think it all boils down to family. The Green Bone Saga is very accurately pitched as a modern epic urban fantasy family saga. And even though it goes through the biggest rollercoaster of a politically epic but emotional plot I have ever encountered… it does so while keeping in mind the one solid beating core that connects every message that comes across and is the underlying reason so many of us feel so attached: Family. That family extends to the people who have trusted you to lead them.
“He was his father’s son; He would not back down from any fight or be used by anyone.”
…
“Ru was not a Green Bone or an heir to the clan’s leadership. He was not a threat or an obstacle to anyone. All he had been was Hilo’s son.”
I have truly never been so emotionally devastated and hungover over any book in my life.
Each book in this series is so unique on their own and has such a distinctive atmosphere that I like to jokingly describe as the 3 stages of grief: Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy, respectively. This last installment most especially tackles the brutal stereotype of clans and gangs while showing their vulnerable sides. Which one of the most clever and heart-wrenching decisions Fonda Lee has ever made. My emotional hangover will never be appeased. You see the world evolving and the characters grow. You experience with them the pain of loss and time but also the simple, little joys of life and family. You see how pain changes people but it doesn’t make them irredeemable, just like what Lan believes.
“Only children and gods are arrogant enough to judge what they can’t understand.”
I wasn’t sure about what to feel about Niko at first but I was amused that the way people viewed him in the story, was exactly the way I did too. In that way, they reflect how a lot of us would act in the face of the conflict that arise. Which was one of the best tools that Fonda Lee employed and it made me see myself in the story, even just a nameless floating entity within the world. Change is always scary at first but the book clearly sends the message of how the story wouldn’t have been possible if Hilo wasn’t different from Lan and how they wouldn’t be able to adapt in the future if Niko wasn’t different from Hilo. Niko is not the best fighter or the smartest, especially compared to Hilo and Lan. But he would know to maneuver the era of the clans into an evolving and more technologically advanced world with all the calculation that you make when you've had to face the extremes of cruelty and power head on. I felt the pain break something deep within me when Shae described how Niko looked when that scene happened and it made me realize that at the end, he's still just a kid in the face of the people who raised him. Cruelty and power is everywhere, as this series never fails to make us forget, but the difference of humanity is in when and how you use it. That it is compassion and love from the people surrounding us that shapes us.
“It’s obvious you’re not a father, Or you wouldn’t feel so invincible.”
It is so unapologetically rooted in its east asian and southeast asian influences without ever feeling the need to water itself down. This series will forever have a special place in my heart because how artfully it was written both technically and emotionally. My tension and awe while reading this had me flipping pages through tears~ This series has debunked so many things I thought I knew about storytelling while expertly applying everything I didn’t know I wanted but needed in a book. I’m going to end this review for now because the only thing I want to do is reread the whole series. I respect Fonda Lee on a whole other level for the emotions she has made me feel that felt every bit rewarding and beautifully painful.
Fonda Lee is a master at propelling a story forward on different levels all at once. I will never get over how well-curated and realized all of these characters are in a vividly and artfully designed setting that feels so real in the mind of it's readers.
"She got me in the end. But she didn’t get us."
Some things to leave you with that I didn't get to say in this very long review:
1. A part of fate is what you choose for yourself
2. Sincerity and compassion go a long way
3. A difference in beliefs does not make you incompatible friends
4. Family is chosen, even those by blood
5. The worst punishment you can receive, worse than death, is being forgotten and deemed insignificant.
6. Even if you have to go to war the next day, you make time to have dinner with your family—
A part of my mind, spirit, and soul will forever be having brunch with the Kauls in the Twice Lucky~
“Good men are remembered with love by their friends.
Great warriors are remembered with awe by their enemies.”
— 5.0 —
⇢ content warnings// Graphic Violence, Death, Torture, Murder, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarraige
“The No Peak clan is powerful,
but it can't change the attitudes and laws of an entire
country of people who don't understand us.”
⤜ pre-read review ⤛
happy release day to pain