I was surprised at how invested I got in this story. I typically don't read a lot of YA because the characters often irritate me more than make me feel sympathetic, and in many ways I thought the main character Zilan was going to annoy me. While the icy, ascerbic necromancer bit was fun at first, I knew it was going to grate after awhile. But as that character straight started to run flat, the author introduce layers of vulnerability and toughness beyond the facade. The character became more and more three-dimensional, even when little bits of romance started to seep in.
The supporting case was also interesting. While the siblings weren't nearly as developed as the main, but they added some depth to the story. Similarly, the romantic interest, while a little too cliche, had a fascinating deconstruction of the trope, so that it wasn't as simplistic in the end as I figured it would be.
The story featured multiple twists that drew me in more, without being overly convoluted or engineered. It didn't feel like there was always a bigger, scarier problem, but rather the reader found out more about the way the world works and that created new problems that needed to be overcome.
The magic system was very neat, if a little unexplored. I think having a background in Chinese alchemical beliefs might help the reader understand some of the magic, but it isn't entirely necessarily. I do feel the author could have held the readers hand a little more here, with maybe some more exploration or exposition to explain the mechanics and differences between the stones. There was a short scene where Zilan is learning about new stones from the Head Alchemist where they start to go into the details, but then quickly pivot away, leaving me wishing they had more scenes like that instead of smoothing them over in favor of moving the plot along. But, despite not going into the details of the magic system, I think the author did a terrific job of keeping the magic a "hard" system that had it's fallibilities and sacrifices, preventing the characters from effortlessly being able to solve problems.
Overall, I think the book is an amazing option for any fantasy reader. The book sets up the possibility for a sequel, but I'm not sure we need one. I think the book wraps up pretty cleanly with an ending that the reader can write for themselves. There's no need to actually expand the universe for a happier ending, the author did an amazing job at setting that up for the reader to infer without needed to ruin the monolithic nature of this story.
The supporting case was also interesting. While the siblings weren't nearly as developed as the main, but they added some depth to the story. Similarly, the romantic interest, while a little too cliche, had a fascinating deconstruction of the trope, so that it wasn't as simplistic in the end as I figured it would be.
The story featured multiple twists that drew me in more, without being overly convoluted or engineered. It didn't feel like there was always a bigger, scarier problem, but rather the reader found out more about the way the world works and that created new problems that needed to be overcome.
The magic system was very neat, if a little unexplored. I think having a background in Chinese alchemical beliefs might help the reader understand some of the magic, but it isn't entirely necessarily. I do feel the author could have held the readers hand a little more here, with maybe some more exploration or exposition to explain the mechanics and differences between the stones. There was a short scene where Zilan is learning about new stones from the Head Alchemist where they start to go into the details, but then quickly pivot away, leaving me wishing they had more scenes like that instead of smoothing them over in favor of moving the plot along. But, despite not going into the details of the magic system, I think the author did a terrific job of keeping the magic a "hard" system that had it's fallibilities and sacrifices, preventing the characters from effortlessly being able to solve problems.
Overall, I think the book is an amazing option for any fantasy reader. The book sets up the possibility for a sequel, but I'm not sure we need one. I think the book wraps up pretty cleanly with an ending that the reader can write for themselves. There's no need to actually expand the universe for a happier ending, the author did an amazing job at setting that up for the reader to infer without needed to ruin the monolithic nature of this story.