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

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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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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hue's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

The writing is a bit much. It's so heavily floral it sort of ruins the course of the story. I'm not a fan of the passage of time within the story either. It's rather clunky, and the sudden 2 year time skip by chapter 9 was rather strange.

The romance seemed rather. . . forced. They like each other because??? They were close? It didn't really work as well as the Author might've wanted, which was a shame because individually Liwei and Xingyin were interesting enough. Together? Not so much.

And then the addition of a rather awkward love triangle. Yeah, no.

However, I really did like Xingyin as a main character. She's strong willed and fierce, gentle and soft, and she stands up for herlsef and her choices.

When she finds out about Liwei's political marriage, she chooses herself rather than a position where he'd be more comfortable than her. As abrupt as it was, it was a good choice.

She also keeps her goal in her mind, and her want to save her mother is her driving force throughout the book which I really liked.

It is a bit like the story itself doesn't know where the plot is going and why, which was why it felt so stilted and . . odd at times. The "missions"(?) she was sent on were so detached from the main story I wondered why they were there at all.

All in all, not a bad read just rather clunky and boring at times. I might still pick up the next volume since there is only the two. I'd like to know what happens next, especially with the Moon Goddess and Xingyin.

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maraavillaa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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