A review by amberimagines
Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen

3.0

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Publishing for this eARC. Of Jade and Dragons is a YA silkpunk fantasy following Ying, who must disguise herself as a boy to uncover the secrets of her father's murder so she can get revenge. Most of this review is going to be under a spoiler warning!

From the beginning, Ying's motivations in this book felt somewhat off to me because despite claiming to love her father, she ignores he dying wish to NOT get revenge, even after she told him she wouldn't? It felt so disrespectful lol especially because she didn't listen to the very reasonable advice of everyone around her (which is very typical of MCs but still). She then runs away from home and joins the Engineering Guild to figure out who killed her father, but most of the book she's not even doing that! There's like one time she accidentally stumbles into an opportunity to investigate the murder but other than that it's like she completely forgets this is what she set out to do. In the middle of the book there's just a lot going on, Ying is completely focused on passing the tests of the Engineering Guild, there's a ton of time devoted to this and her hanging out with the other boys in the Guild, then there's the romance subplot between her and Ye Yang, and then there's this other subplot of the war between their kingdom and the Empire also going on. It just felt very random and like we lost the plot a bit. The romance was pretty lackluster in my opinion, like one second their friends then suddenly they're in love (this is also pretty common in YA fantasy, but still a little annoying lol). It's only after the very predictable betrayal by the male love interest that Ying suddenly returns to wanting to investigate her father's murder. Then when she finally figures it out the whole thing is so underwhelming. She also places blame for his murder on people that didn't make a lot of sense to me. 

Overall I thought this book was pretty predictable. It felt like reading a YA fantasy I've already reads dozens of times, just dropped into a slightly different universe. So I think it could really work for some people! Mostly what disappointed me was the meandering middle of the book where Ying seems totally disconnected from her original goal, then suddenly comes back to it at the end. It wasn't bad, and I would try another book from this author in the future, but this was just was kind of a snooze for me.