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A review by mygeekblasphemy
The Dragons of Heaven by Alyc Helms
4.0
This is probably not going to be an easy book to review, and not just because the author is one of my good friends so, yeah, objectivity? We'll go for it, but I'm not promising anything. I've also been in something of a reading funk the last month or two, which I used this novel to try and pull myself out of. Not a bad strategy -- it's a fast-paced, fun story that I enjoyed a lot -- but I also started reading it on Kindle, and God knows why, but I just read so much slower on Kindle. Once I eventually bought it on paperback, I finished the book super quickly. Possibly as a result, the book occasionally feels a bit off-balance to me, like the first half (particularly the parts set in America) feels slightly at odds with the second.
The book is structured in a Then/Now style, which I generally like, although I will say that I found myself a little more invested in the Then sections than the Now ones, at least as the book continues. This is possibly because the Then section routinely surprised me with developments I was not anticipating. This was delightful -- I love when stories take turns that I don't see coming from a mile away. And the Then sections do very much inform the Now section, so they're not useless. They aren't just flashbacks for the sake of flashbacks; they are hugely important to both plot and character development.
Missy is a great heroine. Some of my favorite things about her can't be discussed without spoilers, which I don't want to get into today, but I can say that she's well-rounded, not just one thing or the other. She fulfills many roles, as people do throughout their lifetimes, and I loved that. I don't agree with her on everything, but I buy all her decisions, and that's what matters. She's also funny. I want to like more urban fantasy, but I've found that often the humor feels forced to me, the banter amusing for a while before being like, "Yep, I get it, she's a clever bastard. You really don't have to give me 17 jokey lines on one page." Missy's banter felt much more natural to me, and I laughed a lot.
I also really like some of the side characters, particularly Si Wei and Jack. Jack is a pretty minor character, and I feel like I loved him possibly more than I was supposed to. I can't explain this.
At the risk of sounding like an ethnocentric bastard, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I sometimes struggled trying to remember who was who because there are a lot of characters in this story with, not shockingly, various Chinese names, and many characters had multiple names, so I was often kind of like, "Now . . . who was that again?" It wasn't a huge stumbling block, but I did have it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the sequel, when it eventually comes out.
The book is structured in a Then/Now style, which I generally like, although I will say that I found myself a little more invested in the Then sections than the Now ones, at least as the book continues. This is possibly because the Then section routinely surprised me with developments I was not anticipating. This was delightful -- I love when stories take turns that I don't see coming from a mile away. And the Then sections do very much inform the Now section, so they're not useless. They aren't just flashbacks for the sake of flashbacks; they are hugely important to both plot and character development.
Missy is a great heroine. Some of my favorite things about her can't be discussed without spoilers, which I don't want to get into today, but I can say that she's well-rounded, not just one thing or the other. She fulfills many roles, as people do throughout their lifetimes, and I loved that. I don't agree with her on everything, but I buy all her decisions, and that's what matters. She's also funny. I want to like more urban fantasy, but I've found that often the humor feels forced to me, the banter amusing for a while before being like, "Yep, I get it, she's a clever bastard. You really don't have to give me 17 jokey lines on one page." Missy's banter felt much more natural to me, and I laughed a lot.
I also really like some of the side characters, particularly Si Wei and Jack. Jack is a pretty minor character, and I feel like I loved him possibly more than I was supposed to. I can't explain this.
At the risk of sounding like an ethnocentric bastard, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I sometimes struggled trying to remember who was who because there are a lot of characters in this story with, not shockingly, various Chinese names, and many characters had multiple names, so I was often kind of like, "Now . . . who was that again?" It wasn't a huge stumbling block, but I did have it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the sequel, when it eventually comes out.