Book Review: Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Title: Daughter of the Moon Goddess
Author: Sue Lynn Tan
Genre: Adult Fantasy/Romance
Version: Hardcover
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables: Chinese mythology and culture
Recommended Readers: Fans of The Ghost Bride, Chinese fantasy, and romantic angst
CAWPILE Rating: 7.29
Rating: ★★★★☆

My Review

I read Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan much earlier this year for a book club with friends, so this review has been long overdue. I pondered how to write about this story, which features Xingyin separated from her exiled, immortal mother and set on a quest to lift her mother’s imprisonment while also undergoing a journey of self-discovery, romantic love, and familial loyalty.

In the end, I’ve decided to outline my thoughts to match the CAWPILE rating system. Let’s explore the highs and lows of Daughter of the Moon Goddess through the lens of characters, atmosphere, writing, plot, intrigue, logic, and enjoyment.

Books I’m Hyped for: July – December 2022

Alright, look.

I meant to post this hyped book list awhile ago. Like, back in June awhile ago. Clearly, I didn’t, and there are a lot of reasons for that which boil down to:

• I didn’t want to do it.
• I was feeling kinda unimpressed with books this year (and still am lmao).
• My reading life has been in shambles.
• And I Super Didn’t Want to Do It.

Frankly, posts like this are a pain in the ass because they require a lot of work that gain very little traction. Worse, a fair amount of books on these lists wind up not being very good once I finally get to them for the amount of work and no traction I’ve put into the whole experience.

So I likely won’t be doing these next year or ever again. I mean, the month of October only has one book coming out this year that I’m interested in. One. I wouldn’t normally post something like this this late at all, except I am, unfortunately, a completionist.

Here we go then: the July through December books I’m hyped for in 2022, many of which have already been released.

July

July 5

The Darkening by Sunya Mara

In this thrilling and epic YA fantasy debut the only hope for a city trapped in the eye of a cursed storm lies with the daughter of failed revolutionaries and a prince terrified of his throne.

Vesper Vale is the daughter of revolutionaries. Failed revolutionaries. When her mother was caught by the queen’s soldiers, they gave her a choice: death by the hangman’s axe, or death by the Storm that surrounds the city and curses anyone it touches. She chose the Storm. And when the queen’s soldiers—led by a paranoid prince—catch up to Vesper’s father after twelve years on the run, Vesper will do whatever it takes to save him from sharing that fate.

Even arm herself with her father’s book of dangerous experimental magic.

Even infiltrate the prince’s elite squad of soldier-sorcerers.

Even cheat her way into his cold heart.

But when Vesper learns that there’s more to the story of her mother’s death, she’ll have to make a choice if she wants to save her city: trust the devious prince with her family’s secrets, or follow her mother’s footsteps into the Storm.

ARC Review: Edgewood

Title: Edgewood
Author: Kristen Ciccarelli
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary Fantasy
Version: ARC – eBook
Page Count: 384
Publisher:  Wednesday Books
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables:  A bard-like protagonist; lesbian side characters
Recommended Readers: Basic fantasy lovers and those who like stories about sentient woods
CAWPILE Rating: 4.57
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

My Review

Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli is a contemporary fantasy YA novel about a girl named Emeline, who is on the cusp of breaking into the music industry as an established folk singer. However, she can never quite escape the creeping woods of her hometown, which permeate her performances whenever she sings no matter where she is.

When she gets word that her grandfather and caretaker has gone missing—potentially taken as a tithe to the mysterious Wood King—Emeline races back to Edgewood to find him. Braving the mysterious woods, she finds the Wood King’s court and strikes a bargain: she will become the Wood King’s new minstrel in return for her grandfather’s freedom. To do that, she must work together with the king’s tithe collector, Hawthorne, to recover the Song Mage’s lost sheet music and discover the cause of the wood’s corruption.

Book Review: Redemptor

Title: Redemptor
Author: Jordan Ifueko
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Version: Hardcover – Illumicrate Edition
Page Count: 441
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables: Diverse cast with a Black girl as the main character; asexual representation
Recommended Readers: Liked the first book, Raybearer? See what happens next
CAWPILE Rating: 4.57
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

My Review

I was convinced after finishing Jordan Ifueko’s Raybearer that the sequel, Redemptor, would be a five-star read easy. Yet here I am, presenting it with a two-star rating and sighing tiredly to myself.

I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

This review may be best served to look back on my review for the first book and see what made me excited to continue with the second one. What was I anticipating? What was I hoping for? What did I want Redemptor to be? Maybe that way I can see why this much-hyped, lauded duology wound up being second-rate and unredeemed.

Obviously, spoilers for both books will follow here.

Book Review: Raybearer

Title: Raybearer
Author: Jordan Ifueko
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Version: Hardcover – Illumicrate Edition
Page Count: 476
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables: Diverse cast with a Black girl as the main character; asexual representation; good fae content; found family trope
Recommended Readers: Are you tired of Western-based YA fantasy books? Here’s your cure.
CAWPILE Rating: 7.86
Rating: ★★★★☆

My Review

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko is an engaging bildungsroman full of heart, spirituality, and magic as its wonderful protagonist Tarisai chases these ever-important questions: Who do I want to be? Where do I belong? Can I be loved for who I am?

From the beginning, Raybearer captured my attention, the novel opening with a small Tarisai meeting her fairy father, Melu, and his wings of blue fire, where he tells her a few truths about her reason for existing. Using three wishes, her mother, The Lady, has bound Melu and conceived Tarisai for a greater, darker purpose, but Melu insisted on giving Tarisai her own name in the hopes she can find her own path and avoid The Lady’s unclaimed third wish.

New Books I’m Hyped for: January – June 2022

It’s that time again: the mega-post, the one where I list every book I could possibly be interested in that releases between January and June of 2022. Er, that I know about, anyway. Do y’all ever notice how often lists out there are skewed towards YA? Where are all the adult book releases? I’ve tried to do a worthy mix of books here, but I know some have fallen through the cracks. Maybe curated adult book lists are my true calling? Mm, maybe, we’ll see if I ever get around to it.

In the meantime, here are some books that got me like 👀

January

Echoes and Empires by Morgan Rhodes (January 4th)

Josslyn Drake knows only three things about magic: it’s rare, illegal, and always deadly. So when she’s caught up in a robbery gone wrong at the Queen’s Gala and infected by a dangerous piece of magic—one that allows her to step into the memories of an infamously evil warlock—she finds herself living her worst nightmare. Joss needs the magic removed before it corrupts her soul and kills her. But in Ironport, the cost of doing magic is death, and seeking help might mean scheduling her own execution. There’s nobody she can trust.

Nobody, that is, except wanted criminal Jericho Nox, who offers her a deal: his help extracting the magic in exchange for the magic itself. And though she’s not thrilled to be working with a thief, especially one as infuriating (and infuriatingly handsome) as Jericho, Joss is desperate enough to accept.

But Jericho is nothing like Joss expects. The closer she grows with Jericho and the more she sees of the world outside her pampered life in the city, the more Joss begins to question the beliefs she’s always taken for granted—beliefs about right and wrong, about power and magic, and even about herself.

In an empire built on lies, the truth may be her greatest weapon.

Most Disappointing Books of 2021

Once I’d reviewed my year of reading and discovered the books that most surprised me in 2021, I knew I had to talk about the books that most disappointed me next. With the marketing hype machines that are publishing houses and authors’ Twitter accounts, you never can tell which books will become soured by disappointment upon finally experiencing them, no matter how excited or hopeful you were for them.

It wasn’t that these books merely fell short of the mark; they were depressingly bad in ways that made me feel like the hype I had for them was silly and wasteful. Many of these books also debuted in 2021, and that in and of itself is a depressing thought. Are books getting worse? Or are my expectations as a reader becoming unwieldy and unrealistic? In an era where stories are becoming bigger and bigger franchises with over-the-top visuals, rehashed plots, and plot-disarming twists, can we be surprised by anything anymore? Have we seen it all?

I don’t think so. While an original story can be groundbreaking, any story that is well-told will travel farther regardless if we have seen its like before or not.

How, then, did the following books fail to live up to my expectations? Time to find out.

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht

Look at that cover! Isn’t it cool? Well, that’s all the cool factor you get with Persephone Station. I was promised a high-stakes adventure and space opera in the vein of The Mandalorian and Cowboy Bebop with an all-queer cast. What I got instead was an incredibly dull 500-page slog with equally dull characters. Each character had a profession and sexuality assigned to them, and that was the extent of who they were. In addition, everyone’s relationships had already been formed before the novel, and nobody had friction with anybody. There was Some Evil Corporation the group had to overcome, but I never once was encouraged to care about it. I started off my 2021 with this book, so you can imagine how unenthused I was after the fact; that’s where Unsounded came in to save my life.

I mean, gosh, when are people going to learn? Never compare yourself to Cowboy Bebop; you’ll never be Cowboy Bebop.

Most Surprising Books of 2021

You never can foresee how a reading year will go. There’s nothing that can truly predict what books will surprise you, how they will fulfill some part of you and occupy your thoughts well beyond their end. Or how they will just plain entertain and delight you.

2021 was such a roller coaster for so many, and that notion was definitely reflected in my reading. I didn’t get to nearly as many books as I hoped I would. While I participated in book clubs and reading challenges, I still don’t believe I made a dent in the books I actually owned. Despite all that, I discovered stories new and old to love, characters and worlds that will continue to shape me as a creative, and ideas that challenge my way of thinking. Some of these books, I wrote reviews for, extolling their virtues and being forgiving towards any vices. I wish I had reviewed all of them, but sometimes that’s not in the cards—so spotlighting them here feels all the more important.

But enough waxing poetic. Let’s highlight some all-star books I didn’t expect to love as much as I did because they absolutely deserve the praise.

Unsounded by Ashley Cope

A few friends have threatened bodily harm upon me for years to finally read the webcomic Unsounded, and this year, I finally did—and became instantly obsessed. Ashley Cope’s wonderful art style and bold storytelling consumed my early months of 2021 as I raced to catch up to the ongoing series, first with the three published volumes and then continuing with the online chapters. I even wrote a fanfic for Cope’s between-chapter hiatus contest, which ended up winning based on popular vote, and I still haven’t gotten over that.

Book Review: Truthwitch

Title: Truthwitch
Author: Susan Dennard
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Version: Paperback
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Tor Teen
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables: Original magic system, female friendship-inspired yet unbalanced
Recommended Readers: Casual fantasy readers
CAWPILE Rating: 2.29
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

My Review

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard was the latest pick for my book club I started this year with a few of my friends, and I had high hopes about delving into a once-hyped fantasy series I missed getting into back in 2017. The emphasis I was seeing from other reviews and the marketing of Truthwitch itself boasted female friendships as its main focus, bolstered by original world-building and a developed magic system about different kinds of witches. Unfortunately, reading the book led me to a crushing reality: over-hyped book was over-hyped and perhaps did not get better with age.

Book Review: Lakesedge

Title: Lakesedge
Author: Lyndall Clipstone
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Version: ebook – ARC
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Synopsis: GoodReads | StoryGraph
Notable Notables: Original fantasy world, a death god is here
Recommended Readers: Young adult readers who like emotional stories
CAWPILE Rating: 4.57
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

Violeta Graceling travels with her younger brother, Arien, to Lakesedge estate, expecting to be at the mercy of the Monster of Lakesedge. The lord of the estate, Rowan Sylvanan, is said to have drowned his parents and brother in the lake. However, once she arrives, neither lord nor lake are what they seem. She discovers that Rowan has a connection to the Lord Under, a sinister death god that makes bargains for a terrible price. She vows to save Rowan, the estate, and herself, all while discovering why she is also being drawn to the Lord Under.

I was so, so hopeful for Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone, a novel that promised to be about monsters and magic, told in a lush gothic style—but was it truly a gothic work in the end?