A review by mynameismarines
Serpentine by Cindy Pon

3.0

Definitely a strong 3.5 stars.

I really enjoyed my reading experience during Serpentine. It was engaging, quick, it was centered around a female friendship and is for all intents and purposes a coming of age story. Tick, tick, tick, tick on the list of things I like to read.

I had the pleasure of hearing Pon speak at NerdCon and I just fell in love with the bright and personable way she comes across. However, it was how she described this book that made me want to read it. In Serpentine, she said she created a female character whose body changes and it makes her question everything. Pon said she wrote it for her growing daughter, though in her book, her MC is less going through puberty (I promise) and more turning into half a serpent. I will say that I really enjoyed that theme throughout the story. Everyone was telling Skybright who she was or who she was supposed to be, whether serpent or human. Her roles and lots in life were pre-determined and the more she asked the questions of who and what she was, the more voices joined the mix to provide answers she wasn't fully sold on. Zhen Ni's story underlines this in a super heartbreaking way. We don't learn a ton about the context of the world these two live in, though we know it is Chinese-folklore inspired, it has gods and monsters, and it seems to pretty old-school in terms of handmaidens and marrying off womenfolk. Zhen Ni falls in love with another girl and she gets a difficult lesson on duty and those pre-determined roles for women. Zhen Ni is a little spoiled and... squeaky?... for my tastes, but she is also loyal and full of fire and I felt for her a ton by the end of the book.

All that said, I think there is definitely some room for improvement. I love description heavy writing, but if you don't, you may run into a couple problems here. I mean, when I was reading it, I didn't think, "wow! These are a lot of descriptions." If I'm honest, there were a couple times when I jumped a paragraph or two to get to the action. As I was reading through reviews on Goodreads, I saw "description heavy" come up a couple of times and went, "ooooh." If that helps at all. Basically, description level: I didn't notice it per se, but a few times I skimmed to get to the action.

Also, as much as I loved the main themes of the story, they got to a little bit repetitive toward the end. In general, the story told had lots of repetition. We find Skybright waking up as a snake a few times, she runs into the forrest a few times, she searches for Kai Sen a couple of times. What saves it all is that the story moves quickly and is relatively short so that repetition never got out of hand for me.

I really liked Skybright as a character. She's so mature and gathered and loyal. I wish we had seen a little more of her (in terms of getting to know her), but again, it was a relatively short book with a lot going on. And of course, Skybright is in flux when we meet her so we only get to know her as much as she's getting to know herself. As an aside, when I first started reading, I thought Skybright and Zhen Ni were a lot younger than they actually are. I think it might be some of the dialogue that made it seem that way. There were points I would've pegged them as young as 12 or 13. I wish I had been paying attention to if this seemed that way because 1- stilted dialogue or 2- sheltered characters or 3- me and some reading comprehension issues. Alas.

I finished this book last night and immediately bought the second book from my Kindle. Y'all know how terrible I am about series, so the fact that I even want to read the second book should convey that I'm invested in this story and these characters.

Solid, entertaining read made for a Saturday afternoon when you've got some hours to spare.