Review by shoujas - Song of Silver, Flame Like Night

shoujas 's review for:

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

3.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

while the book has its flaws, i honestly really love it. it's probably one of the only books that had me emotionally invested right at the first chapter. i was initially here for the romance, but i completely fell down a rabbit hole and got so immersed in this fictional world.

i enjoyed the world-building, even when the explanations felt a little too academic at first. what can i say, i love learning about hin culture and its history! and i felt like the book was more of a critique on colonization and ideology (and how we should develop our own critical thinking, beliefs, attitudes, etc. basically our own philosophy, yadda yadda yadda) rather than the fantasy elements of it, and i appreciated that it went in that direction.

i found myself agreeing with the grandmaster a lot.

i also love the complicated character development throughout the book, even if lan and zen went in completely different directions.... sobs.... i just want them to be happy..... and i love their dynamic before.. all that happened.... i thought the characters were likeable, and i love shanjun and tai :( and i love dilaya too, much to my own surprise. i wanted to hate her at first because of how she treated lan and zen, but she understandably had her own prejudices towards zen's clan bc of nightslayer and all that. i found myself sympathizing for her and ulara. i also really love dezi T_T he's so sweet and i honestly called it that he was lan's father because of the way he cupped the side of her head so gently. but he's my favorite out of all the characters tbh

anyways, one of the flaws that i noticed right away was the pacing. i would have loved to see what it was like to live in the school of the white pines, but it went past that. i thought it did not make sense.... i wanted to learn more about chue :( it was weird for the book to cut right into going to the guarded mountain.

another one was the name-calling and the fighting between dilaya and lan. i'm pretty sure it was supposed to reflect their clashing personalities, but i was not a fan of it personally :(

overall, though, i did enjoy it and i will be looking forward to reading the sequel!

Content Warnings