A review by bookaquarius
Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Jade Legacy Review (wherein I spew quotes and praise): 

“The clan is our blood, and the pillar is its master!” 

I showed up to play checkers but Fonda Lee was playing chess. I was on edge, I was pulled into a false sense of security, I was watching the wrong threat, and BAM! 💥 There goes my mind exploding. I admit, I cried twice. Partly from sheer shock, partly from my love for the characters, and mostly in reverence for how an author can pull you so deeply into a narrative that the death that shows up only in ink on a page makes your heart twinge with real loss. Fonda Lee wrote a stunning, epic conclusion to the Green Bone Saga. Keep in mind that some resolutions come with a price, and Green Bones don’t pull punches. 

The third book made me love the first two even more out of appreciation for how the scale of the story escalated so gracefully. As the stakes grew for the Kaul family, they changed for the world as well. Tackling crime, war, political machinations, immigration, culture conflicts, and the consequences of globalization all the while exploring intimate connections between family is no small feat. I think this saga accomplished it beautifully. 

If you’re a fantasy lover, you should absolutely give this series a chance. I haven’t read an urban fantasy anything close to this is scale or quality. 

The series is not perfect, but damn it’s close. 

“Why not escape reality, when it was so unbearably cruel to wives and sisters and mothers?”

“How do we do it? You of all people already know the answer to that. We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”