Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Daughter of the Moon Goddess

This was an adventurous story about Xingyin, the secret daughter of Chang'e the Moon Goddess. Hidden away for most of her life, her mother sends her away when her life becomes endangered. Xingyin finds herself amongst the world of other immortals and strives to find a way to free her mother from her imprisonment. While also hiding her true parentage. Along the way she becomes an accomplished warrior and draws the attention of two powerful immortals, but Xingyin is not the only one with secrets.

I'll start with the negatives and go to the positives.

My biggest issue was with the love triangle, which is a plot point that always bothers me, no matter what the book. I hate when the main character is literally dragged between two love interests, especially when there's a more interesting plot as a whole (in this case, Xingyin's desire to save her mother and that felt pushed to the side fairly often to put attention on Xingyin's relationship with Liewi or Wenzhi).

I will give credit to the plot twist, I did not see it coming and I'm usually very good at spotting them a mile away. On that same hand, there were so many little plots going on I kind of forgot about the one that led up to the plot twist until it was revealed.

My only other annoyance was the way that the author described how Xingyin would guess at how someone was reacting to what she said or did based on their reactions, I started to noticing it about half way through and then noticed every time it happened after.

Overall I was very impressed with this book, Xingyin grows from a timid and sheltered girl to a powerful immortal and warrior in her own right and I loved that aspect of the story. It felt like I was reading a very gorgeous wuxia drama unfold in my own imagination with how the scenery, magic, and weapons were described. I am excited to read the next book in the series and see where it takes Xingyin and her family!

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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kbairbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This was a whirlwind. A wild ride. I listened to this as an audiobook at the same time that I read it in physical and I noted some… changes. I don’t know if the audiobook narrator was given an unfinished copy of this book to narrate or what but my copy did not have ableist language that hers did. I’m grateful mine didn’t but at the same time it was rather disconcerting to hear these ableist and noticeably different sentences than what I had in front of my eyes. Story wise I enjoyed it. It was really interesting seeing the growth and years pass for the main character and the traitor was not who I expected. There was a lot of romantic back and forth and a lot of angst. Nearing the end there was so much going on I was confused about the storyline. It felt like the author was throwing shit in there just for the sake of adding trials but when it all added up I totally understood. Also this author is very good at making villains and Liwei is such a cinnamon roll!! Excited for book two

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lucielockettreads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This book has so many good quotes in it, a lot of them felt like lessons and I’ll always take them with me now. The only reason I lost a quarter of a star was because I guessed a later plot twist and that frustrates me when I do that ~~I’m just too observant sometimes~~ and this book has made me want to look into more Chinese mythology!!

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