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

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

221 reviews

lilo000's review against another edition

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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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

4 ⭐ CW: violence, blood

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan is book one in the Celestial Kingdom duology. This was a fantasy romance inspired by the legend of Chang'e, the Chinese Moon Goddess, and had beautiful, lyrical prose that was almost poetic.

We follow Xingyin, daughter of Chang'e, living secluded on the moon where her mother has been isolated as punishment for ingesting an immortality elixir meant for her husband. When the Celestial Empress comes to check in on Chang'e and her punishment, it is discovered that Xingyin is there illegally. With the help of their attendant, Ping'er, Xingyin escapes on a cloud, but is dropped into the Celestial Kingdom, where her very existence is a danger to her.

Xingyin gets the opportunity to become the Celestial Prince's companion and study with him to learn more about controlling her magic. Along the way they become close friends, and eventually fall in love, ill-fated as it is with him being the prince, and she with her concealed identity. Xingyin becomes an expert archer and a badass as she fights creatures and monsters, all while trying to figure out a way to free her mother from her prison. There is also a love triangle, dragons, and lots of magic.

This was a wonderful story, but I did find it a bit slow and meandering in places as we see Xingyin doing battle after battle. I did see the twist coming from a mile away, but Xingyin was a strong character, and I appreciated that. I definitely want to learn more about the demon realm here, because it's clear to Xingyin that good and evil isn't so cut and dry when the Celestial Emperor doesn't seem to be the greatest person, and the demons (and dragons) do have a point about their oppression. This is a story about freedom and enduring love.

Looking forward to book two!

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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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katewhite77's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

A Gentle Coming Of Age Fantasy Novel

The story is based on Chinese mythology, and Xingyin is our heroine. She has to leave home quickly one day when a representative of the celestial kingdom comes knocking on the door.

Xingyin is also the daughter of the moon goddess who is under house arrest for drinking an elixir of immortality when she was pregnant. Years later, unauthorised and uncontrolled magic is discovered emanating from the moon goddesse's palace, and Xingyin has to leave in a hurry lest she gets discovered. A big adventure begins.

Along the way, she meets Liwea the heiir to the celestial kingdom itself, and Jianyun, the enigmatic senior soldier in the celestial army, who spots her talent for archery.

I would recommend this for people like me who don't read a lot of fantasy as it is slow to medium paced overall. and the world is not that dissimilar to our owm. This is part of a duology, and I definitely want to read the next one. If like me, you like big long books you can fall into, then this one is for you, and it had a fabulous twist. I did not see coming.

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julierambaeck's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-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

3.0

I felt like this book was all over the place. The pacing was off, which really took me out of the story for most of the book. It took 200 pages for me to care for the characters and the story, and I think after the 200 page mark was where the pacing started making sense (kinda). The love triangle was one of the worst I have ever read. INCREDIBLY stupid characters, I did not like a single one of the love-interests, and I did not understand why the love-interests even liked the main character who changed her mind every other page.
The plot was kind of strange, there were soooo many quests and dangerous situations that by the end I didn't really care, because they were so easily solved, and then we just moved on.
I won't continue in the series, and I also think you can see this as a standalone, it wraps up nicely by the end of the book.
But overall it was kind of enjoyable...

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