A review by kelly_shea
Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan

1.0

Loved the first book but hated this one by the end. As some others have said, the plot itself was pretty weak. I got bored about halfway through. Mostly, though, I found Xingyin insufferable. Her wavering between Liwei and Wenzhi was so frustrating. I don't enjoy love triangles in the first place. But I pushed through it because I thought that surely she would end up with Liwei. To choose Wenzhi after all that he put her through in the last book? I cannot believe that Xingyin put the "betrayal" of Liwei temporarily being betrothed (then breaking it of his own accord!) on par with what Wenzhi did. Wenzhi tricked her, stole from her, and kidnapped her by his own choices, and she could get over that - but couldn't forgive Liwei for almost giving in to family pressure. Poor Liwei. Wenzhi was a manipultive and borderline abusive character and I wasn't sad when he died, despite the author spending the whole book trying to push his "redemption" arc onto us. I was honestly quite annoyed at the revelation that he existed in the mortal realm. Characters coming back to life (not to mention Houyi) in this way really reduced the impact of their deaths in the first place.

I was similarly disappointed with how characters other than Xingyin developed in this book (Liwei and others were much more flat than in the previous installment), but for now I will leave it at this.

Clearly a lot of people liked this book & were satisfied with the ending, but I honestly wish I hadn't read it. I don't plan to read this author again, and will probably donate my copy of this book and pretend it doesn't exist.