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A review by sarah984
Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim
adventurous
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I've seen this book advertised as "Project Runway meets Mulan" but that's unfortunately not very accurate. Yes, teenage tailor Maia disguises herself as a boy to enter a competition to become the next imperial tailor in order to protect her father and brother, but that set up is tossed out almost immediately in favour of standard YA foolishness.
Maia’s disguise barely factors into the novel as she's discovered almost right away, and presents as female for the majority of her page time. (Also for some reason she doesn't consider the fact that if she wins the competition she will have to live as a man forever until someone else brings it up??) I really enjoyed the idea of the competition, and the challenges were interesting. However, the competition ends less than halfway into the book. Afterward, Maia is sent on a very long and boring quest with her boring 500-year-old love interest and makes a bunch of stupid decisions.
This is the type of YA insta-love where it is impossible to see what the two characters see in each other and they reiterate how all-encompassing it is over and over. Maia constantly puts the love interest and his wellbeing ahead of herself and her family, which is annoying in a story comparing itself to Mulan.
Every problem that the characters encounter except for the sequel hook is solved almost immediately via wizard magic so the stakes feel very low. There is one singular interesting character and she's hardly in the book.
I really can't recommend this to anyone interested in it for the concept.
Maia’s disguise barely factors into the novel as she's discovered almost right away, and presents as female for the majority of her page time. (Also for some reason she doesn't consider the fact that if she wins the competition she will have to live as a man forever until someone else brings it up??) I really enjoyed the idea of the competition, and the challenges were interesting. However, the competition ends less than halfway into the book. Afterward, Maia is sent on a very long and boring quest with her boring 500-year-old love interest and makes a bunch of stupid decisions.
This is the type of YA insta-love where it is impossible to see what the two characters see in each other and they reiterate how all-encompassing it is over and over. Maia constantly puts the love interest and his wellbeing ahead of herself and her family, which is annoying in a story comparing itself to Mulan.
Every problem that the characters encounter except for the sequel hook is solved almost immediately via wizard magic so the stakes feel very low. There is one singular interesting character and she's hardly in the book.
I really can't recommend this to anyone interested in it for the concept.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Grief
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Sexual content, Violence, and Xenophobia