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A review by thewallflower00
Shadowboxer by Tricia Sullivan
3.0
This book has two different halves that have nothing to do with each other. One half is awesome, the other isn't.
The one that's awesome is about Jade, an MMA fighter that goes to Thailand for some training (and to avoid a possible arrest after beating up an MMA fame whore). Holy cow, let me repeat that. A book about a girl American Mixed Martial Artist who travels half a world away to the land of Muay Thai for further training and a chance at a title shot. Doesn't that sound awesome? Doesn't that sound like no other book you've ever heard before? It did to me.
But the other half has nothing to do with this. It's about a girl who can teleport through plants who's being exploited by some rich white guy holed up in Thailand to deliver drugs and human traffic to various parts of the world undetected. It's not even the same genre as the Jade story. It's a dark fantasy with Thai mythology and beliefs about reincarnation and ghost/spirits and animals. Not what I came in for. And neither character has any relation to the other, either in spirit or plot. They just... meet... at the end.
I would so love this book if this part was excised. Each half has nothing to do with each other, it feels like it was shoehorned in to increase length. I just want to hear about Jade. I care about Jade. I'm interested in Jade. Not some girl who can walk through walls and the old rich white guy "big bad". I can go to X-Men for that. The tonal difference is too jarring. That keeps this book from being one of the best I've read.
The one that's awesome is about Jade, an MMA fighter that goes to Thailand for some training (and to avoid a possible arrest after beating up an MMA fame whore). Holy cow, let me repeat that. A book about a girl American Mixed Martial Artist who travels half a world away to the land of Muay Thai for further training and a chance at a title shot. Doesn't that sound awesome? Doesn't that sound like no other book you've ever heard before? It did to me.
But the other half has nothing to do with this. It's about a girl who can teleport through plants who's being exploited by some rich white guy holed up in Thailand to deliver drugs and human traffic to various parts of the world undetected. It's not even the same genre as the Jade story. It's a dark fantasy with Thai mythology and beliefs about reincarnation and ghost/spirits and animals. Not what I came in for. And neither character has any relation to the other, either in spirit or plot. They just... meet... at the end.
I would so love this book if this part was excised. Each half has nothing to do with each other, it feels like it was shoehorned in to increase length. I just want to hear about Jade. I care about Jade. I'm interested in Jade. Not some girl who can walk through walls and the old rich white guy "big bad". I can go to X-Men for that. The tonal difference is too jarring. That keeps this book from being one of the best I've read.