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

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

152 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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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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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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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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