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A review by phoenix2
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
1.0
Daughter of the Moon Goddess is a fantasy novel that mixes Chinese myths to create an action packed fairytale. However, for me, the romance ruined the book.
Starting up, the book is trully action packed, with plenty of battles playing out as well as political intrigue. The core of the story, the moon goddess and her daughter, was another strong point of the book, even though it often took the backseat for the romance the blossom.
The latter was okay, but too cheesy, using too many cliches. The pace was also all over the place, with most of the romantic tension buildup happening off page. Thus, our girl happens to have feelings for one of our male interests from one chapter to another. That said, it would also have been nice if we could read her military training and progress rather than skim through it. In addition, the love triangle was cringey and, as the romantic moments between the characters were few and off the page as mentioned, it didn't create the right environment so when the big twist happened it didn't have the impact that it should. Plus, on that note, our main girl learns about the demon realm and although it seems like she would start questioning why the kingdom punishes those who happen to have the 'forbidden' magic, she turns around and, because of TWO evil guys she encountered, she stereotypes everyone from the demon realm to be bad and their magic evil. For me, it would have been nice if we got to see their point of view and explore their magic further. However, Xingyin just refuses to open up to that idea, so I can only hope the second book would dive deeper into the demon realm's politics.
Other than that, the writting was beautiful and Xingyin well written as a character, with nice character development. The rest of the characters, however, felt like cells and was not easy to connect with them.
Starting up, the book is trully action packed, with plenty of battles playing out as well as political intrigue. The core of the story, the moon goddess and her daughter, was another strong point of the book, even though it often took the backseat for the romance the blossom.
The latter was okay, but too cheesy, using too many cliches. The pace was also all over the place, with most of the romantic tension buildup happening off page. Thus, our girl happens to have feelings for one of our male interests from one chapter to another. That said, it would also have been nice if we could read her military training and progress rather than skim through it. In addition, the love triangle was cringey and, as the romantic moments between the characters were few and off the page as mentioned, it didn't create the right environment so when the big twist happened it didn't have the impact that it should. Plus, on that note, our main girl learns about the demon realm and although it seems like she would start questioning why the kingdom punishes those who happen to have the 'forbidden' magic, she turns around and, because of TWO evil guys she encountered, she stereotypes everyone from the demon realm to be bad and their magic evil. For me, it would have been nice if we got to see their point of view and explore their magic further. However, Xingyin just refuses to open up to that idea, so I can only hope the second book would dive deeper into the demon realm's politics.
Other than that, the writting was beautiful and Xingyin well written as a character, with nice character development. The rest of the characters, however, felt like cells and was not easy to connect with them.