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

Reviews tagging 'War'

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

182 reviews

sirkeili's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

I kind of stumbled upon this book series by accident, but I vividly remember looking at the sequel and the book store clerk excitedly gushing that these books were amazing.

From the beginning, Xingye wormed her way into my heart. Her sheer bravery in the face of impossible odds, to her devotion to those whom she loves, just made her more and more appealing as a main character.

I also love how she is always looking at the bigger picture, rather than a blind focus on her end goal, and will take sacrifices that she knows will save more than just herself. She sees the machinations of her world, and the rules she's forced to abide by, yet she has them bend to her own desires with a fair compromise.

As someone who loves mythology and fantasy, this is a really refreshing and engaging take on it, and Xingye is an absolute delight to share it with!

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lpdx's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.75

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kaerene's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-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? No

4.0

I want to give Daughter of the Moon Goddess five stars, and I was going to, until the chapters after Xingyin leaves the Jade Palace (IYKYK). I didn’t feel like Xingyin recapping the previous 14 hours of a 15 hour audiobook to a certain character felt relevant. There were some moments of those chapters that needed it for reconnection but it was too much.

Aside from needing to cut some chapters at the end, I truly enjoyed this book. The writing is beautiful. The way that Sue Lynn Tan describes the places in her book and what Xingyin is experiencing is almost like prose and is extremely profound. I don’t think I’ve read or listened to anything like it before. I also loved the plot and got heavily invested while listening and would make comments to what other characters were doing or saying. AND! Part 4’s plot twist?! The way I screamed when that twist was revealed. Mind blown.

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woolerys's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

Writing - 3/5

Plot - 4/5

Characters - 4/5

World-building - 4/5

Personal tastes - 3/5

TOTAL: 3.6

Started slow, but then had multiple moments where I was holding my breath and racing over the page to see how a close predicament turned out.

I didn’t ever quite trust Wenzhi but the extent of his betrayal still took me by surprise!

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lilo000's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

I appreciated some of the inclusions of Chinese tradition/culture in here. I think the adventure was definitely my speed, but I read this book in too close conjunction with one with a few too many parallels, which is no fault of this book's. I appreciate the main character and her strong sense of character + strength in general. I think I got fed up with the love triangle, so (assuming the following book hashes this out more) I'm not sure I'll be reading the second book. Would still recommend, since the ending was ending enough to not need the second book (I say without having read the sequel)

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mlkao94697's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

2.0

I am overall pretty disappointed. I’ve heard so many great things about this book and I was super excited to read it especially since it was based in Chinese mythology. I rated this a 2/5. My criteria: I did not enjoy this book overall but there were a couple of parts that I thought were somewhat engaging or interesting. There were several fundamental issues that I have with the story or the writing style. I definitely will not read this book again. Suffice to say, I don’t think I’ll be reading the sequel.
The good things: I thought the premise was cool and I thought that the world was described beautifully and in a way that I could really imagine myself being there. Ok… moving on to what I didn’t like. The tell don’t show style of writing really got under my skin and didn’t improve throughout the book. I didn’t feel any attachment to the characters and the relationships felt stunted because of this. Some spoiler-y criticisms:

Xingyin’s character development was almost nonexistent. Yes, she got more powerful (very quickly at that), but she didn’t really grow in any other way. Her ambition is tied pretty much solely to freeing her mother, which I as a reader did not find interesting or compelling. I wanted something more from her, but just never got it. Also, so many people treat her so poorly for almost no reason constantly! It got so frustrating at some points. The romance was… ok I guess. At some points it was fine and even good but I eventually got bored of it. Liwei was not really interesting beyond being merciful and kind. And Wenzhi was pretty much unredeemable by the end.

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krumanda's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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avrija's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging hopeful sad medium-paced

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

3.75

This was a good book. Longer than my usual ones but good nonetheless. I really liked Xingyin as a character. She was very different from the typical “strong female character” stereotype in a way that she never downplayed other women or was against femininity. She was strong in every way and not only because she was a soldier. I love that her honour and pride is so important to her and really does shape her character in an interesting way. I also loved Liwei as a character and their interactions; their interactions felt so tender and comforting to read about and I just love them together. Wenzhi also was an interesting character and felt so different to Liwei in that love corner that it made for interesting interactions. As for the side characters - i felt a lot of them were quite similar. Shuxiao had a nice backstory that could have easily added to her relationship with Xingyin and how they interact but it wasn’t very utilised as the story did focus on the romance. As for the plot — it’s there, definitely, but saving her mother often did take a backseat to the love story. Considering this is a romance book not too surprising but it was mentioned often enough and played into Xingyins characterisation and choices in a believable way that made it interesting to read even when a scene technically didn’t advance the plot.

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katiefronk's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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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lillygabriella's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

This was very good and I am looking forward to reading the sequel in the future. Love the dragons. Lots of court intrigue in the background and I suspect we will discover in the next book that a certain person is a spy. A torn between two loves book. Not spicy, very PG in that area. I'd be comfortable letting my younger teenager read it. Has fantasy violence and descriptions of injuries and bloodshed.

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