For the first time ever, I did not give a Joan He book a five out of five star rating, which is completely out of left field for me and was definitely not on my Bingo card for 2022.
I've slowly come to terms with my disconnection to Strike the Zither due to the fact that it took me so long to finish it, and my disconnect really stems from one major thing—characters. I've always found Joan's characters to be dynamic, genuine reflections of humanity, so to not like a single one of STZ felt like a nightmare. I could see where Joan was taking each of the characters, but no matter what happened none of the characters ever drew me in. It's not even like I was left on a precipice to nearly connecting with them; no, I was back about a mile from the edge on the sturdiest ground ever. I probably should've DNF-ed this book, but again, my love for Joan's other work was so strong that I pushed my way through.
Now let's get to some of the specifics.
Zephyr aka Qilin. Where do I even start with her? Her connections to people did not make sense to me one bit. I never felt like she had any loyalty to anyone, and even with her "loyalty" to Ren, it felt disingenuous to me. I never could quite understand why she cared that much, and when the plot twist happens about halfway through, I still didn't believe it because the reasoning felt like "well fate determines all, even one's feelings for another," which is NOT what I want to hear. Zephyr keeps trying to tell us why she's loyal to Ren, but the more she does this, the less I believed it. And maybe that was part of the point—I don't know—but that's not good enough for me. I think more groundwork and development needed to happen to get me to connect with Zephyr and understand her on a deeper level. The saddest part is that Zephyr is the driving force of this book, so by not caring for her, I didn't even spare a glance to her comrades, romantic link to Crow, or even her sister. It all felt fake and weird.
The other big reason I didn't like this book was the pacing. It made ZERO sense to me. Why are we going through a war/ rebellion at a 100x speed?! I was experiencing whiplash from the amount of location jumps and strategizing with nearly every side of this fight. I never felt like I could take a deep breath to bask in this world. Zephyr does have some deep moments with other characters, but those felt like disruptions since the pacing was previously so quick. It was a back and forth jerk that I couldn't get over. All of this is leading to the big spoiler—Zephyr's "death." I don't know the source material well, so I'm open to this being an error on my own ignorance, but Zephyr being a god did not feel real at first. I know its a plot twist for a reason, but my brain could not comprehend this character I did not like now being a disgraced god for her last eighteen years on earth. Then, she came back to earth against other gods wishes to possess one of her old friends. WHAT? I already didn't believe in Zephyr's loyalty to the cause, so now her possessing someone to continue working for Ren did not feel right to me. It also didn't feel very god-like, and maybe that's because she's been a human for eighteen years... I just couldn't believe the reality of this situation.
I've slowly come to terms with my disconnection to Strike the Zither due to the fact that it took me so long to finish it, and my disconnect really stems from one major thing—characters. I've always found Joan's characters to be dynamic, genuine reflections of humanity, so to not like a single one of STZ felt like a nightmare. I could see where Joan was taking each of the characters, but no matter what happened none of the characters ever drew me in. It's not even like I was left on a precipice to nearly connecting with them; no, I was back about a mile from the edge on the sturdiest ground ever. I probably should've DNF-ed this book, but again, my love for Joan's other work was so strong that I pushed my way through.
Now let's get to some of the specifics.
Zephyr aka Qilin. Where do I even start with her? Her connections to people did not make sense to me one bit. I never felt like she had any loyalty to anyone, and even with her "loyalty" to Ren, it felt disingenuous to me. I never could quite understand why she cared that much, and when the plot twist happens about halfway through, I still didn't believe it because the reasoning felt like "well fate determines all, even one's feelings for another," which is NOT what I want to hear. Zephyr keeps trying to tell us why she's loyal to Ren, but the more she does this, the less I believed it. And maybe that was part of the point—I don't know—but that's not good enough for me. I think more groundwork and development needed to happen to get me to connect with Zephyr and understand her on a deeper level. The saddest part is that Zephyr is the driving force of this book, so by not caring for her, I didn't even spare a glance to her comrades, romantic link to Crow, or even her sister. It all felt fake and weird.
The other big reason I didn't like this book was the pacing. It made ZERO sense to me. Why are we going through a war/ rebellion at a 100x speed?! I was experiencing whiplash from the amount of location jumps and strategizing with nearly every side of this fight. I never felt like I could take a deep breath to bask in this world. Zephyr does have some deep moments with other characters, but those felt like disruptions since the pacing was previously so quick. It was a back and forth jerk that I couldn't get over. All of this is leading to the big spoiler—Zephyr's "death." I don't know the source material well, so I'm open to this being an error on my own ignorance, but Zephyr being a god did not feel real at first. I know its a plot twist for a reason, but my brain could not comprehend this character I did not like now being a disgraced god for her last eighteen years on earth. Then, she came back to earth against other gods wishes to possess one of her old friends. WHAT? I already didn't believe in Zephyr's loyalty to the cause, so now her possessing someone to continue working for Ren did not feel right to me. It also didn't feel very god-like, and maybe that's because she's been a human for eighteen years... I just couldn't believe the reality of this situation.