A review by billyjepma
The Dawn of Yangchen, by F.C. Yee
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I’ll never get tired of spending more time in this world, but this was a pretty mid-tier story, overall. There’s some good stuff in here—I’m always going to love seeing the politics of a fantasy world play out—it’s just the character work that’s lacking for me. Yangchen has some compelling interior conflict, but we don’t see enough of it to make her feel as fleshed-out a protagonist as even Kyoshi was in Yee’s duology about her. We get more development with one of Yangchen’s kinda-sorta allies than we do with her, which leaves the narrative feeling a little confused, like it can’t decide on who the story is about.
The setup we get is interesting, though, and the book ends on a note I’m eager to see continued in the next book. Yee may have gotten off to a more sluggish start with this, but I’m confident it’ll pick up.
The setup we get is interesting, though, and the book ends on a note I’m eager to see continued in the next book. Yee may have gotten off to a more sluggish start with this, but I’m confident it’ll pick up.