Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Song of Silver, Flame Like Night

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

39 reviews

fairynanook's review

adventurous sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I really wanted to love this book. It had the promise of everything I've been enjoying reading lately. But I really struggled with it. If I had to explain what didn't work for me, I think it was just that the book never took any time to let you breath. It dropped you into the middle of a war zone and made you stay there until the unresolved end, since the story has more than one book. I needed things to slow down so I could fall in love with the characters, but instead, I just sat and expected them all to die because they were put into one impossible situation followed by another with literally no down time. It felt like PTSD in fictional book form. I don't know that I am going to be able to continue the series because it just feels too intense to keep going.

Content Warnings

kays_reading_journal's review against another edition

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5.0

Content warnings: full warnings listed in the section below but there are multiple instances of on page sexual assault.

I can't believe I let this book sit on my shelf for over a year before I picked it up, it's incredible!!

The romance, the plot, the world building, the aesthetics oh my god. All incredible.

It was a bit slow at the beginning as the story was setting itself up, but once our two main characters started fully interacting I was hooked.

I also think some of the side characters could have had a bit more development, but it's looking like we'll see that in the sequel!

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btwnprintedpgs's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I really wanted to DNF this story about 35% in - the beginning was exciting and dark and full of action, and then we hit this absolute lull of information dumping and vague travel through the forest. Then we get to a school and suddenly we're bombarded by names and people and things that are all new to me. It was a lot, especially since I'm a Canadianized CBC who knows nothing about these legends and gods. It was hard to digest everything, even though I really wanted to.

That being said, I'm glad I stuck it out - there's a lull for about 15% of the story, but it picks up again and then it's non-stop go-go-go from there. Then the gods, the mystery, and everything start to fall into place. I feel like if we had more showing instead of telling from the start I would've adjusted better, but as they go through all these things and discover everything that's going on, all that lore starts to make more sense and is explained better. These things also helped to unravel who these characters are - Zen, who's desperate to be good and protect the people he loves, even if he has to make bad deals for that to happen; Lan, who's headstrong and hates rules, trying to find a way to save the world without losing herself in the process; along with the masters and disciples of the school.

I loved the lyrical writing - it's very flowery and aligns with the style of storytelling I'm used to from these stories. Though, at times, it was a bit odd *queue the Star Wars reference, or Bible reference, whichever is to your taste* but I loved that it contributed to a lot of the world building and painted us a picture of the characters so well in that moment.

One thing I did feel was that this mimicked her original trilogy a bit - girl with untapped power meets a man who can help her somehow, an escape from an army, and a group coming together to train and change the regime - and I couldn't help seeing the parallels as I read. I think Amelie's writing has improved a lot since her debut, but I couldn't help hear an echo of it as I read Song.

All in all, I enjoyed this story and I'm very curious about what book 2 holds for us now that the world and lore has been well established!

TW: death of a parent, sexual assault, violence, death, blood, injury detail, war, torture, suicide, grief; mentions loss of family in war, imprisonment, mutilation

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naa_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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speedeephoebee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative mysterious reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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ammah's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Shelley Parker-Chan wasn't kidding when she compared this book to The Untamed because it is essentially a less violent version of MDZS (the novels it was based on) but with M/F leads. Not that this is a bad thing, but if you've read any wuxia or xianxia novels, you'll probably be like me and feel this is treading over ground you've already been through. That said, a lot of the terminology was put simpler than in those novels (seeing as Chinese audiences are likely already familiar with such concepts) so if you found MDZS or any other similar novels a bit too unwieldy, I could see this book being beneficial to those kinds of people.

What I liked:

It bears repeating again but you can tell a lot of love was put into representing the Chinese culture, both for atmospheric purposes and so that it is sufficiently devastating when the Elantians come and destroy everything. The characters also got to criticise some aspects of their culture too, but in a respectful manner.
Although I feel like the romance between the two leads is a little rushed, it was nice that there wasn't any smut between them. I have nothing against smut, but it would have felt gratuitous and likely gone against any precepts of cultivation the characters were following if it was included.
On a similar but more grim topic (content warning for sexual assault/trafficking):
I'm glad that the sexual assault that the patrons of the Teahouse went when being sold to the Elantians was off-screen but given enough gravitas that it felt enough of a threat to any of the workers. This isn't to say such things can be depicted but I don't think it would have been appropriate for this age demographic (and the bar is so low for avoiding things happening purely for shock value in books to get people to buy them these days and yet many books still fail to clear it)
The magic system is well thought-out. If you've read enough wuxia/xianxia it's nothing new or fresh, but it at least adheres to the conventions of these systems. It was interesting that the Elantians had metal as their main magical element, however, since it is also one of the classical elements in Chinese. Likely it was a magic they stole, but nothing has been confirmed about it as of this book.

What I didn't like:

A good chunk of the first half of the book felt like it dragged for too long with not much happening. I know a lot of it is supposed to be about Lan training herself, but it felt like there wasn't much else other than her training and getting into trouble. Granted this was because of them waiting for someone to cure Lan's arm, but contrast this with something like MDZS where most of the training is either off-screen or we see the characters go on little missions to show the progress of their cultivation and have opportunities for other things to happen.
Speaking of Lan, I don't normally get irritated by girl leads but she kept getting under my skin for being disrespectful or doing stupid stuff because she felt like it. I could understand if she developed this kind of attitude after leaving the teahouse at the start, but it didn't make sense to me how the proprietor of the place put up with her for so long just because she had a beautiful singing voice. Even in the School of White Pines, it felt like she got out of punishment too easily for no reason (especially the teacher that pulled a Lan Qiren on her and made her copy out thick books with thin pages as a punishment).

Also while I'm glad her attitude and powers improved, I feel like there was no point where the change was visible. It just sort of happened. Her attitude was particularly egregious with her and Dilaya where she was instantly catty to the latter for no reason. At least the author didn't turn the story into a love triangle where Dilaya and Lan competed for Zen's affections. As for her powers improving, it's revealed it was the work of the Silver Dragon laying dormant in her. It was slightly foreshadowed so I'm not too mad, but it felt weird no one pointed out how prodigious Lan was at something she hadn't learned to do from a young age unlike most of the other pupils at the School. I also felt she got off way easier than Zen did with the Black Turtle when she commanded the Silver Dragon's power.
And then there's Zen. I know I put this series has strong character development but it barely applies to him, save for the second half of the book. For the most part of the story he's the world's most patient stoic guy and that's all he has going for him.
This is definitely a trauma response to losing his people and having a demon bound inside of him so that he could slaughter the culprits in revenge, but even trauma victims are more than just their trauma. He felt like the perfect love interest for the reader to project onto and go "I can fix him!" through Lan over having any actual character.

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bo0ks_are_cool91's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Got me out of my reading slump:) can’t wait to read the next book

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abby_can_read's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I had a really good time reading this book. While I thought the pacing was inconsistent, it does make sense now that I've reached the end. The worldbuilding with the lore and the history is amazing. The characters were good, though I adore the side characters most, and their relationships were solid. I am excited to read the sequel.

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mystic_storyweaver32's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Started off at a medium pace but then was a little too fast toward the ending that some moments that were meant to be emotional were anticlimactic and felt rushed especially the final battle and what happens after. I would have like to see different reactions and emotions from the other characters other than Lan and Zen.

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