Jade Fire Gold by June Cl Tan
Jade Fire Gold is a story about a girl with no past or family and a boy who had his throne stolen from him whose paths have crossed and they go on a journey together to find themselves.
In all honesty, I think the beginning of the book started off pretty strong. The premise of the book was interesting and something I can really enjoy as the story progressed. And then it sort of lost me about half way. Our main character is named Ahn, who has magical powers and can also steal lives and we also have Altan, whose family was betrayed and his father the emperor gets murdered. My one problem with the two is that they’re so incredibly boring. I know the author is trying to make them interesting, but I’m not really interested in them. Ahn is pretty much a passive person and her decisions make me want to either roll my eyes or yell at her for her decision. Altan is an okay character if he was more of a background character. Speaking of, I found the background characters more interesting than the main characters that I almost wished that we got more information out of them. I also thought that the supposed romance was lacking and wasn’t as developed as I had hoped it would be. It felt a little forced and it didn’t really seem all that natural.
The plot was pretty interesting and I was mostly invested into what was going on. Some of it kind of got side tracked and I had a hard time trying to follow along, but it was still interesting with how the magic system worked and the consequences of dark power can consume a person. The ending is where I got lost and felt it was a bit underwhelming to say the least. It felt like the ending was rushed and the conclusion final and I remember staring at the pages going ‘that’s it?’ Some of the twists were well made, even though I sniffed out the red flags from a mile away. The empress being a traitor was definitely something I knew would happen, but Tai Shun not being a legitimate son to the emperor was something I did not see coming. The cliffhanger makes me feel like the author is planning to write a sequel, which I'm hoping for because I am very invested in what just happened in the ending.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad book. It still kept me interested in the story and the characters that were presented. I also wished that the book provided a map so I at least understood where the characters were going. Either way, it was a decent book with decent plot and characters that needed a little bit more development.
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