Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (Rise of the Empress)

I adored this story, though I wish I would have realized it was an evil queen from Snow White origin story. I would have been rooting for her wickedness, not for her to do better. Regardless, it was a fantastic read and I enjoyed it so much!

I was anticipating a great fantasy but it didn't have enough zing for me.
The cover is pretty and the story world has potential but isn't layered enough for me to feel as though I was there.

The protagonist, an unlikeable girl whose greed and vanity shines brightly. The so-called important friendship is unconvincing and the romance lack spark.

The plot is slow, especially in the beginning and I almost DNF several times. I finished the book but I don't think I will remember much about it in a month

@crushingcinders
Complimentary review copy provided by the publisher.

A brilliant, immersive debut. Julie Dao's language is poetic but accessible, her world-building is impeccable, and her anti-heroine journey is fiercely original. I excited for the sequel, but I'm also left completely satisfied with the first book.

Dao's writing is beautiful and immediately sucked me in. I love the setting and the world--it feels so rich and immersive. Yet, I didn't find myself really connecting to the characters in the way I wanted to. The secondary characters felt rather flat. Also, I have a hard time falling for unlikeable characters when I don't fully understand their motivations.

I absolutely loved this dark, dark tale of palace intrigue and the war between love and ambition in the heart of one girl. Dao has a phenomenal imagination, and layers up the details of mythology and magic to create a truly immersive world that most strongly echoes imperial China, with neighbouring nations redolent of Japan and Russia.

Take a moment at the beginning to read the pronunciation guide, so that you hear protagonist Xifeng's name in your head as you read, because this girl will suck you in - you'll be rooting for her to win, because of her self-belief and bravery, yet hoping she makes the right choices and not the wrong ones, because the darker path is always the clearer one before her.

There are also some fantastic secondary characters: wise and lovable ambassador Shiro (yay for a person of short stature who, unlike Tyrion Lannister, gets a genuine love story), slippery eunuch Kang, ambitious emperor Jun and his mesmerising but unstable concubine Lady Sun. Dao draws them all clearly and convincingly, to give real emotional weight to Xifeng's decisions.

I really, really loved this book. You might see it billed as a retelling of the 'evil queen' from Snow White - don't be put off at the the thought of yet another fairy tale reimagining. I'm not a fan of that genre, but it's lightly done here. An extra layer if that appeals to you, or one you can gloss over if it doesn't. It does make guessing about the next book fun, though - based off the ending here, I'd say book two will pick up the story in 16 years' time, or thereabouts. I'm just sad I've got to wait more than 16 seconds to get my hands on it.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns is a gorgeously written debut novel inspired by the Evil Queen legend from Snow White.

Xifeng lives a frugal and unhappy life in her dilapidated family home, along with her aunt Guma who raised her. By reading cards and practicing magic, Guma sees greatness in her niece's future, but this rise to power will come at a price. Xifeng will have to give up something or someone important to her to achieve it.

Xifeng is beautiful, ambitious and intelligent. She has a difficult and complicated relationship with her aunt. Although Guma treats her harshly with her words and physically beats her, she expresses that she has high expectations for her niece. Xifeng lives for the rare moments of kindness and occasional approval she receives from her aunt, hoping for genuine love and affection from her. Deciding to take her fate into her own hands, she leaves Guma and her village behind. She travels with her lover Wei to the Imperial City in the hopes of becoming the one destined to unite the five kingdoms and bring peace to the continent. However, it is foretold there is another whose destiny may be greater than her own.

Xifeng has an inner malevolence that she desperately strives to suppress. She is quick to anger and has extremely violent thoughts about others who she feels have slighted her, no matter how insignificant the circumstance. She constantly struggles to fight this creature within her and not embrace the darkness which will destroy her soul. Her transformation through her choices is plausible and authentic. She is resourceful as she faces adversity and rivals on her path to becoming the Empress.

There is remarkable attention to detail in every aspect of the story. The village, the Emperor’s palace, Imperial City and the forest where the tengaru reside, are all magnificently described. The characters are extremely well-developed, unique and believable. The connections and interactions between the women are more potent and fascinating than the romances, which makes for a more thought-provoking narrative.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns is a powerful and compelling fantasy tale, filled with mystery, dark magic and secrets. Julie C. Dao has created a kingdom that is beautifully imagined. With East Asian mythology, colourful demons, political intrigue, complex relationships and an ambitious, yet tortured anti-heroine, I can’t recommend it highly enough!

This book…wow. The writing is GORGEOUS and the story is unlike anything I’ve ever read.

It would be classified as a YA retelling of Snow White with the origin story of the evil queen but this book is so original and so unlike the classic and other YA fantasy books that I’d say it deserves its own sub-genre. Reading this book felt like going through every range of emotion in a minute- Dizzying. Horrifying. Elating.

Forest of A thousand lanterns is a re-imagining of the Evil queen’s story set in an imperial, Chinese-inspired world. If you’re even thinking about comparing it to other YA retellings, don’t bother. This book goes THERE. Just when you think things are getting too bloody, you have someone cutting out and eating hearts; just when you think it’s too dark, it gets darker. Xifeng is an anti-heroine in its truest form. She will go places you’d never have imagined. Dark, horrifying, and brutal places. Just when you think she couldn’t possibly do any worse, she does much much worse. She’s a complex character that you’ll be rooting for under all circumstances.

This book starts off with Xifeng as a peasant girl living a miserable life with her aunt whom she has a toxic relationship with. Her aunt is a witch and brought Xifeng up drilling into her that her destiny is to be an empress. And Xifeng is ambitious; so ambitious that she sets off on a long, heart-breaking, and testing journey just to fulfill it. On this journey, she’ll sacrifice a lot and she’ll endure too much, but she goes through it with gritted teeth. Xifeng truly terrified me one too many times and she goes to unspeakable distances to get what she needs but I just can’t help admiring her. A character doesn’t have to be likable to win me over and boy did Xifeng win me over. I loved watching her gain agency and it drove me crazy watching her teeter so close to the dark side but I adore this character. Every time she does the unthinkable I find myself cringing and despairing but cheering at the same time. Xifeng has the good and the bad at war within her and I enjoyed witnessing that. I love that she’s vain and wicked and selfish but also loyal and caring. I love that she’d stop at nothing to get what she wants. This book was truly a mind-churning journey but it payed off in the end (understatement of the year). That brutal, horrifying ending had me sad and slack-jawed and slow-clapping

The first half was admittedly hard for me to get through because it was slow-going and a bit uneventful, but the second half is truly mind-blowing and more than made up for it with all the palace intrigue, politics, seduction, and evilness. An absolute must-read. Push through till the end even if you’re having doubts, it’s worth it.

Note: I received this ARC as part of Miss Print’s ARC Adoption Program. So, special thanks to Emma!

TRIGGER WARNINGS :

• Violence and gore
• Whipping and beatings

“She would bloom where she was planted and let her roots close around the throats of her enemies.”

Stars (Out of 10): 7/10 Stars

Favorite Character: Gotta say Shiro, only character who didn’t seem super evil? (Oh and the Crown Prince, he was decent too)

Spoiler Free: Now I’m not going to say this is the best release of 2017, because it really wasn’t. But I will say that this was a very enjoyable read, and it's still messing with me right now.

Xifeng is not an MC that you necessarily want to live up to, but she’s amazing because of that. She is strong and powerful yes, but she is also selfish, shallow, and to be honest, more than a little bit evil. Getting to be inside her brain was downright scary at points, but that just contributed to the uniqueness of this book. The book still wants you to support her, and this creates almost an inner battle within us. Do we support this women, ready to do anything to follow her destiny, or do we support those that try to bring her down?

But the characters was not the only thing this book had going for it. While I did find the plot predictable at points, and not necessarily the book's strongest trait, I absolutely loved the world. While it could have been more developed, I really enjoyed a book that just seemed fully immersed in the world’s culture. It didn’t stop to explain every little thing, it just existed, and that made the story flow pretty well in my opinion.

Lastly, this book went super fast. The more simple level of writing, when compared to Laini Taylor’s Strange The Dreamer and Maggie Stiefvater’s All The Crooked Saints at least, fits well to the story, but also makes it not that difficult to digest, meaning I actually finished this quite quickly! Overall, in terms of language and writing style, it felt like just your average YA fantasy.

Careful! Spoilers beyond this point!

Spoilers: Here, I’m going to try and discuss why I didn’t give this book a 10/10, and this mainly is due to the plot.

For one, I never felt the conflict of Wei vs. Court, since I could never find myself cheering for Wei and Xifeng to be together. Right off the bat, Wei is too controlling, too judgemental, and we just never see his sweet side without his angry side. This means that I also never get her sacrifice or struggle between choosing to continue her quest at court, or simply running away. I’m not even convinced Xifeng ever truly loved Wei, as she pointed out his cons more than his pros, and often referred to him as a friend as well. Additionally, she completely forgot about Wei (in the thoughts shared with us), as soon as she got to court, only stopping to think about him when the celebration came, as well as her next chance to see him.

Another flaw was the predictability of one of the main twists, Guma being the true mother of Xifeng. When Xifeng runs away, Guma refers to her as daughter, and while Xifeng brushes this off, it seemed very clear to me how obvious this foreshadowing was.

Lastly, the overarching presence of Guma, and Xifeng’s reliance on her, felt very polarizing at points. I completely understand the struggle of an abused child between love and hate of that parent/guardian, but Xifeng’s struggle felt way too back and forth. At points, she was ready to completely forget about her, but as soon as Xifeng started to realize what being truly fed and cared for felt like, she began to love Guma more than hate her, which just felt strange. Additionally, by the end it seems like we were supposed to realize that Guma did her best for Xifeng, and that’s all you can ask for from a parent, but I can’t find it in me to forgive a mother who chose to beat her child to protect her.

But regardless of all that, seeing an evil queen rise, and become even more evil throughout the story, was definitely different than everything I’ve ever read before, and I loved it! Usually you see this change occur backwards, with either the MC or main villain working to extinguish the darkness from their hearts, or even feel some remorse at their actions, but it was almost a breath of fresh air to see the mind of a villain so set in what they wanted, and willing to actually do whatever it takes to get it.

Dao's writing is beautiful and immediately sucked me in. I love the setting and the world--it feels so rich and immersive. Yet, I didn't find myself really connecting to the characters in the way I wanted to. The secondary characters felt rather flat. Also, I have a hard time falling for unlikeable characters when I don't fully understand their motivations.