Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Ciudad de Jade

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Ciudad de Jade by Fonda Lee

5 reviews

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Objectively, this book is well written and has wonderful world building. However, I think its downfall is a common comparison of going into it with the idea that “you’ll like it because it’s like Mistborn”. The only similarities I saw was that there was a major city and the characters use a substance that gives them abilities. That is where the similarities end. In the end, this book was definitely not for me, so it very well could be for you. Fonda Lee is a good writer still, but the content was lacking for my own personal preferences.

I found the characters to be absolutely insufferable, with the exceptions of Anden, Shae, and Ayt. All of the other characters were

engaging in war over petty family squabbles, so I actually agree with Bero in looking upon green bones in disgust. They are all elitist and treat the city as if it’s their own personal battle ground while also demanding steep tributes from “stone eyes”, or regular people that cannot use jade. One example is Mr Une, who at the end of the book cuts off his ear because he defected to the mountain clan even though he was under serious duress of being murdered and having his decades old family business destroyed in flames. My feelings the entire main plotline were like the disgruntled citizens mad at spider-man for keeping the city safe when it resulted in damages to property and injuries (the villains wouldn’t even be there if spider-man wasn’t there, and there wouldn’t be clan wars if there were no clans). The only things these clans were keeping lantern men safe from was each other, and if neither existed there would be no reason to require protection.

I also disliked how little

jade actually played a part in the story. This changed closer to the end of the book, but even so the final battle felt lackluster for what it could have been. If you have these characters that are able to use a substance to become super powerful, why wouldn’t they use it every chance they get? It also felt like the few times they did use it for more than “wear jade get stronk” meathead type of abilities, it was only dwelt on for 1 sentence, or it was to perceive emotions which is so boring. Jade gives users the ability to make themselves lighter, deflect things, make the user hard as steel, plus more and you would think that a fantasy book would want to touch more on the thing that makes it unique. This made the battle scenes incredibly boring for me, on top of the already perpetual boredom of expecting an action fantasy but instead receiving a book on clan politics.

If I had known how much of this book would revolve around politics, I would not have even started. I expected at least some politics, but the ratio was way off. This was so lackluster for the excitement I felt going into this book and it felt like an absolute drag to finish. If you have read The Well of Ascension and disliked the middle 60% where it was all about politics then do yourself a massive favor and skip this one.

Some other reviews talk about there being some massive twist; if the massive twist was

that Ayt was trying to kill Hilo all along, then that’s a pretty stupid twist. It even says somewhere when Mudt gives Bero his assignment to shoot up the gentleman’s club to shoot holes through Hilo’s car and not Lan’s if you pay attention to the model types of the cars.

The characters were hard to enjoy (with the few exceptions above), especially when

Hilo berated Anden at the ceremony for not taking Jade despite the history of his mother’s death and demise being public knowledge. Of course the boy doesn’t want to wear jade, and it makes him stronger for having the willpower to say so. I found it hard to feel anything but dislike or complete indifference for characters. I could not have cared less when Lan died and only was mildly curious about the mystery behind his reaction to the jade he had previously won that was making him volatile (although this is just chalked up to SN1 in the end anyways lmao). I was hoping for a lot more of Ayt since the reviews I have seen mention her a lot and she was one of the few characters I found interesting (she reminds me of Azula from ATLAB) but alas her presence was extremely lacking.

TLDR; if you are expecting and epic fantasy with action, DO NOT READ. If you are a fan of clan politics that boil down to petty family drama and minimal magic in a fantasy setting, go for it. At the very least, the city is cool.

Content Warnings