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This was my pick for the "judge a book by its cover" square. The special first edition features intricate art on the inside covers, and metallic foils on the edges (flames? a phoenix in flight?) Neat!
This is a loose Mulan retelling, in a setting that's clearly some level of fantasy-China; I don't know enough to say what aspects of history and geography are accurate or original. (Terms like "Three Kingdoms" and "Warring States" get tossed around, but it's not clear if they map onto the RL equivalents; in-universe epigraphs date the chronology to year 923 of their calendar, but who knows that that corresponds to; the protagonist's father suffers from a severe opium addiction, but it's not in the context of a colonialist war.)
So, Hai Meilin's father is addicted to opium, and he wants to marry her off to a rich merchant for the dowry money. Both her father and would-be husband are physically abusive, and Meilin thinks, "hey, I know martial arts, I don't want to be a slave to the patriarchy, I might as well run away and take my father's place in the war." (He's a lazy draft dodger in this version.) She'll probably die, but at least a few months of freedom are better than helplessness.
There are a couple characterization notes that are thoughtful and deep. Meilin's stepmother Xiuying is only a few years older than her, but rather than resent the attractive young woman who takes her mother's place, she recognizes that Xiuying is like her sister, an ally against their abusive father/husband. And her reaction the first time she kills a man in battle was powerful:
So far, so good. But this could all have fit under "historical fiction." How do the fantasy aspects play in?
Well, when Meilin leaves home, Xiuying gives her a jade dragon pendant that had once belonged to Meilin's mother, who succumbed to madness. Very shortly after, Meilin starts hearing a mysterious voice egging her on to acts of ambition and/or risk-taking. Many readers would probably discern some connection between these events, but Meilin is not so genre-savvy. So instead of Mushu, the cartoon helpful dragon, we have Qinglong, a spirit guide who appeals to Meilin's sense of ambition to bring out the worst in her.
Song explains in an afterword that she was responding to the traditional versions of the Mulan legend, in which Mulan either returns home humbly or dies from suicide rather than become a concubine; she wanted to write a story in which Meilin's (healthy!) ambition to be more than society allows runs into conflicts with the power structures, even after she's saved the kingdom. I think that portrayal is sad, but realistic. However, this version of the story has Meilin manipulated and jerked around by Qinglong, until we're not sure which of her ambitions are her own versus the dragon's; it's hard to get invested in her agency that way.
More broadly, the book suffers from many of the weaknesses of "YA as pejorative." It's a first-person narration from a young woman who has, exceptionally, been trained in martial arts and the meditative practice of qigong by an open-minded household servant; none of this is necessarily a flaw, if done well. But Meilin's narration spends a lot of time quoting italicized lines from earlier in the book to hammer home the important messages about ambition; much is made of her chemistry with various commanders and/or captors; she spends a lot of time being whumped, in captivity, being tended to and worrying about breaking free; she has to hide the fact that she's a woman, and just when she begins to get respect, has to start over hiding the fact that she's a spirit medium. Her self-pity is justified, but can get annoying.
I also had a hard time keeping track of characters in the magic-artifact plotline. The smallest of the warring kingdoms is Ximing, whose forces are led by Chancellor Sima; his personal name is Sima Yi, but when Meilin meets him in the spirit realm, he introduces himself as "Taiyang," a reference to his affinity for sun/fire magic. But Sima is weakened because someone stole his jade seal and broke it into pieces, so he has to go chase after them, while Meilin follows him to try to prevent him from regaining his strength. Is the thief's identity supposed to be a mystery until late in the book? There aren't that many characters aware of the jades and their powers; another important character in Ximing is introduced incognito, at first, and then revealed to be more politically powerful than he was at first glance. So if there was a mystery, it got lost/obscured in my confusion about "wait, who's Taiyang again."
Early on, Prince Liu explains that he's traveling incognito "To survey the city...and learn the discrepancies between the official reports and the lived experiences of my people," which seemed jarringly 2024 as opposed to fantasy-923. But then again, if you like fake identities and dramatic reveals, one person's flaw may be another person's feature.
Bingo: using it for "Judge A Book By Its Cover;" could also count for Dreams, Published in 2024, Author of Color, Reference Materials (maps), maybe Criminals (disguising yourself as a man to join the army is...not allowed) or First in a Series (ends with a "to be continued" but this one just came out so no details on the sequel yet).
This is a loose Mulan retelling, in a setting that's clearly some level of fantasy-China; I don't know enough to say what aspects of history and geography are accurate or original. (Terms like "Three Kingdoms" and "Warring States" get tossed around, but it's not clear if they map onto the RL equivalents; in-universe epigraphs date the chronology to year 923 of their calendar, but who knows that that corresponds to; the protagonist's father suffers from a severe opium addiction, but it's not in the context of a colonialist war.)
So, Hai Meilin's father is addicted to opium, and he wants to marry her off to a rich merchant for the dowry money. Both her father and would-be husband are physically abusive, and Meilin thinks, "hey, I know martial arts, I don't want to be a slave to the patriarchy, I might as well run away and take my father's place in the war." (He's a lazy draft dodger in this version.) She'll probably die, but at least a few months of freedom are better than helplessness.
There are a couple characterization notes that are thoughtful and deep. Meilin's stepmother Xiuying is only a few years older than her, but rather than resent the attractive young woman who takes her mother's place, she recognizes that Xiuying is like her sister, an ally against their abusive father/husband. And her reaction the first time she kills a man in battle was powerful:
His eyes were blank and unseeing, his expression frozen in perpetual grimace. I staggered back, nearly dropping my sword. I had just killed a man.
I had imagined this moment so many times before. Not this stranger, but always--Father.
It was during his moments of hysteria, when my father would slap, strangle, wrench at my hair like I was an animal. All those times, I never fought back. I never so much as lifted a finger against him. And yet, in my mind's eye, I had imagined so vividly--the act of killing him.
The warlord of Anlai (Meilin's home kingdom) has recently instituted a crackdown on spirit worship/magic, so the first few chapters have a lot of "thank the spirits! ...I mean, the Imperial Commandant," which was amusing. And Meilin's commander, the honorable and duty-bound Prince Liu, is a compelling character as well. When his soldiers are like, "we're gonna go into town and enjoy the attentions of the local women," at first it seems like just a setup for Meilin to be awkwardly like "I'll pass," but then a few pages later, we get Liu explaining, "actually this is a honeypot trap and it is a risk to security."I had imagined this moment so many times before. Not this stranger, but always--Father.
It was during his moments of hysteria, when my father would slap, strangle, wrench at my hair like I was an animal. All those times, I never fought back. I never so much as lifted a finger against him. And yet, in my mind's eye, I had imagined so vividly--the act of killing him.
So far, so good. But this could all have fit under "historical fiction." How do the fantasy aspects play in?
Well, when Meilin leaves home, Xiuying gives her a jade dragon pendant that had once belonged to Meilin's mother, who succumbed to madness. Very shortly after, Meilin starts hearing a mysterious voice egging her on to acts of ambition and/or risk-taking. Many readers would probably discern some connection between these events, but Meilin is not so genre-savvy. So instead of Mushu, the cartoon helpful dragon, we have Qinglong, a spirit guide who appeals to Meilin's sense of ambition to bring out the worst in her.
Song explains in an afterword that she was responding to the traditional versions of the Mulan legend, in which Mulan either returns home humbly or dies from suicide rather than become a concubine; she wanted to write a story in which Meilin's (healthy!) ambition to be more than society allows runs into conflicts with the power structures, even after she's saved the kingdom. I think that portrayal is sad, but realistic. However, this version of the story has Meilin manipulated and jerked around by Qinglong, until we're not sure which of her ambitions are her own versus the dragon's; it's hard to get invested in her agency that way.
More broadly, the book suffers from many of the weaknesses of "YA as pejorative." It's a first-person narration from a young woman who has, exceptionally, been trained in martial arts and the meditative practice of qigong by an open-minded household servant; none of this is necessarily a flaw, if done well. But Meilin's narration spends a lot of time quoting italicized lines from earlier in the book to hammer home the important messages about ambition; much is made of her chemistry with various commanders and/or captors; she spends a lot of time being whumped, in captivity, being tended to and worrying about breaking free; she has to hide the fact that she's a woman, and just when she begins to get respect, has to start over hiding the fact that she's a spirit medium. Her self-pity is justified, but can get annoying.
I also had a hard time keeping track of characters in the magic-artifact plotline. The smallest of the warring kingdoms is Ximing, whose forces are led by Chancellor Sima; his personal name is Sima Yi, but when Meilin meets him in the spirit realm, he introduces himself as "Taiyang," a reference to his affinity for sun/fire magic. But Sima is weakened because someone stole his jade seal and broke it into pieces, so he has to go chase after them, while Meilin follows him to try to prevent him from regaining his strength. Is the thief's identity supposed to be a mystery until late in the book? There aren't that many characters aware of the jades and their powers; another important character in Ximing is introduced incognito, at first, and then revealed to be more politically powerful than he was at first glance. So if there was a mystery, it got lost/obscured in my confusion about "wait, who's Taiyang again."
Early on, Prince Liu explains that he's traveling incognito "To survey the city...and learn the discrepancies between the official reports and the lived experiences of my people," which seemed jarringly 2024 as opposed to fantasy-923. But then again, if you like fake identities and dramatic reveals, one person's flaw may be another person's feature.
Bingo: using it for "Judge A Book By Its Cover;" could also count for Dreams, Published in 2024, Author of Color, Reference Materials (maps), maybe Criminals (disguising yourself as a man to join the army is...not allowed) or First in a Series (ends with a "to be continued" but this one just came out so no details on the sequel yet).
