Jade warriors are young, and then they are ancient.
Jade Legacy
by Fonda Lee
Genre: Adult Fantasy
About: More than a year has passed since the events of Jade War, and the No Peak clan are still battling a slow war with their enemies. But as their children grow up and the conflicts of other nations press on the island of Kekon, it isn't just the Mountain clan the Kauls have to worry about as their business deals and family ties begin to fall apart.
The Good
Knowing that this book spans twenty years, I was worried that the focus would be too much on the newer, younger characters but Fonda Lee keeps a perfect balance between the generations. This is still very much Hilo, Shae and Ander's story. And what a story. I loved how the events of the past two books really mattered in how the story came to its ending. Characters are defined by the decisions they have made, and especially by their mistakes. Every character feels like a real person because you see them making the same mistakes over and over again but you also see them learning and growing. How Fonda Lee gives such different character perspectives and develops that growth is really genius. There is a lot of plot to keep up with but it's the characters that ground you into the story and they are who you pledge your allegiance to, even (and sometimes especially) when they do horrendous things.
There are so many epic moments and since the story does span such a large stretch of time, those moments become history in your head. When characters refer to events from the previous books or even from a couple hundred pages ago, it feels nostalgic, a part of history that you were there for.
Of course I love Fonda Lee's writing throughout this series. The metaphors and similes she uses to explain a power or to emphasis emotional upheaval are so original and made reading this such a joy. I constantly found myself re-reading sentences just because I thought how clever a phrase was or it would make me feel something so strongly that I would want to re-read to hold on to that moment.
There aren't a lot of funny moments exactly, though there are some, and one of them I think speaks to how realistic the world-building is. A new character POV is introduced and he describes the Twice Lucky (a restaurant where the story actually first begins) as being over-rated. This honestly felt like a slap in the face to me, and then made me laugh that I could feel insulted because he doesn't like the restaurant all my favourite characters frequent. A lot of the things that made me smile were very small things like this, and these microscopic character and world details together made me so invested in the story.
The Bad
I don't have anything truly negative to say about this series. It made me cry twice (and one of the cries was a proper sob) and I did feel anxious reading in a few moments so that could be a turn off for some readers that don't enjoy reading something that will fuck with your emotions like that. Another thing that could be a turn off (but which I loved) was that the story hinges on a lot of politics which can be confusing at times if you aren't pay close enough attention. This is not a casual book-by-your-bedside-table read.
And I did think the first couple hundred pages were a bit slow perhaps. Things were definitely happening and some of them quite emotional, but it didn't become an addictive read until further into the story, which honestly makes sense as you need build-up so it's not much of a criticism.
I'm also still not really in love with Bero having been involved in this story at all. I know he's not supposed to be a likeable character and it is kind of fun that he's been involved in so many of the twists and turns, but I still didn't feel he had enough of a purpose. In Jade Legacy in particular he just didn't add much and that's maybe because even he struggle to think what his motivations in life were anymore.
The Somewhat Iffy
I really loved the flashback scene we get between Hilo and Lan that leads to one of Hilo's first big duels, that was so awesome to see, but I did think it was maybe a bit iffy that the Mountain's Fist couldn't Perceive that Hilo wasn't really drunk. It does get explained how Hilo tricked the guy, but for someone with strong jade abilities it still didn't seem all that believable.
One of the Clanless plots felt very chaotic. To keep this spoiler free, I'll just say the bar one relied on people acting the way the Clanless wanted them to act (for their plan to work) rather than knowing they would act that way as it wasn't a given at all.
Also Ayt Mada's last and final plan felt a bit out of character for her. I do think I understand why she did it, but I also think it didn't need to come from her at that point. Though as a side note, I absolutely love how Fonda Lee crafts villains. She's been quoted as saying she wants her villains to be people that if she wrote the story from their perspective, they would be the heroes and this is absolutely true of most of the antagonists in the Green Bone Saga, especially Ayt Mada.
Overall
I loved Jade City, but I was blown away by Jade War as the world expanded so much and the stakes climbed higher and higher. In Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee manages to surpass herself again. This was a truly spectacular, gut-wrenching and awesome end to a modern day classic.
Comments