The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng | Review // Summing up how this book destroyed me!

Greetings readers!

This review has been sitting in my drafts for MONTHS and it is now finally getting its time to shine.

Let’s just say that I had so many things to say about this book, but I never could find the right way to say anything. Go figure. Nonetheless, I found myself wanted to express my thoughts and the time has come to share it with you all!

So bear with me as I chaotically tell you all about how AMAZING THIS BOOK IS and why you must read it!!

Many thanks to HBG Canada for providing me with a review copy!

The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng by K.S. Villoso

Pub Date: May 4th, 2021
Publisher: Orbit Books

The stunning finale to the Chronicles of the Bitch Queen trilogy where the queen of a divided land must unite her people against the enemies who threaten to tear her country apart. K. S. Villoso is a “powerful new voice in fantasy.” (Kameron Hurley)

Queen Talyien is finally home, but dangers she never imagined await her in the shadowed halls of her father’s castle.

War is on the horizon. Her son has been stolen from her, her warlords despise her, and across the sea, a cursed prince threatens her nation with invasion in order to win her hand.

Worse yet, her father’s ancient secrets are dangerous enough to bring Jin Sayeng to ruin. Dark magic tears rifts in the sky, preparing to rain down madness, chaos, and the possibility of setting her nation aflame.

Bearing the brunt of the past and uncertain about her future, Talyien will need to decide between fleeing her shadows or embracing them before the whole world becomes an inferno.

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THE REVELATIONS HAD ME FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY

The first half of this book is just discovery after discovery. Revelation after revelation. I was so shook. Secrets from past books are no longer secret which means that all of Yeshin’s ploys he had set beyond the grave get uncovered. In a way we sort of get into his head and wow what a place to be. Honestly, it was a perfect way to plot an intense and incredibly suspenseful book! Trying to connect all the dots of every ploy and scheme in this book really had me feeling like this ^.

And the aftermath of all these revelations is bloody. Uncovering these secrets comes with hard decisions and sacrifice that honestly leaves the pages drenched in blood.

THESE INCREDIBLE CHARACTERS ARE THE HEART AND SOUL OF THIS SERIES.

If you like messy human beings, then you need to read this book.

Tali: I just *scrunches up face* I just love her. The messiest of all queens, she is simply a phenomenal character. In my review of book 2, I asked if Tali will ever see herself as more than Yeshin’s daughter and my oh my I got my answer. This entire book was here to give me an answer and WOW Tali’s reckoning with her identity, her reputation and her father’s ghost all came to push every one of Tali’s boundaries.

Khine: Literal messy perfection takes form in Khine Lamang. I said, what I said. I dubbed him my forever man. Forever haunted by the mistakes of his past. Forever dedicated to the people that he chooses to care for. And forever the most resourceful character in this book. A brilliant man, yes I love him.

Rai: So this book asked me to have a little empathy with Rai and ugh I think it worked!!! Don’t get me wrong I still detested this man for 85% of this book. He can be a real despicable mess BUT I must say there is an intense 15% where I feared for Rai and felt his every emotion. I can only attest this to the brilliant writer that is Villoso.

And I’m just going to say it – no character is unimportant in this book. Not even the ones you think are just passing by. Everyone had a role in this story, they all legitimately had a purpose and gosh darn it I was IMPRESSED.

And on that note I would just like to add that the stars of this show were WOMEN!

Every woman in this story was simply iconic in their own unique way! Did I love them all? Absolutely not! But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that these women were chaos-makers, revenge-seekers, and power-wielders. They were ambitious and fiery and passionate. Don’t even get me started on the different tiers of mother-daughter relationships because I will literally turn into a MESS. To keep it simple: Keep an eye on all the ladies of this story. Whether you love them or hate them, they are the game changers in this book!

THE NARRATION WILL FOREVER BE THE MOST ICONIC ASPECT OF THIS BOOK SERIES

Tali writing down her own story will always put me in my feels. Finding out why she started writing and WHO pushed her to start writing will forever have me on the FLOOR IN TEARS. This novel reminds us that history books have a way of blurring what actually happened, of missing important details and of painting figures, especially women, in certain ways that give into misogynistic traditions. So taking it upon herself to write her story, to tell us about her life as she lived and experienced it will forever be the most iconic move she (really Villoso) made. I just loved it.

WE GOT MORE MAGIC AND DRAGONS AND GHOULISH CREATURES.

If I thought book 2 was chock full of magical beings, this book upped the ante by like five levels! This final installment gets us closer to this mysterious agan that has been so far in the periphery of the story. With this third book, we get to dive deep into the lore of this magic and find out how it is connected to dragons, the land and the people. And you’d think that the looming threat of a magical bomb would lull people out of their political squabbles, but no. Of course not, *See “Messy characters”* But this squabbling just made the book all the more intense and stressful to read which is exactly what I wanted to feel. I mean it’s a political plot in combination with a magic doom, plus a mad prince wreaking havoc, a son in hostage, people trying to kill the main character on every page and the knocking consequences of a long deceased father’s decisions IT’S A LOT! And I love it.

LOVE. DUTY. SACRIFICE.

Three words that make up three major themes of this book. There is no singular meaning to any of these words, each means something unique to different characters. You can find these themes so closely woven into every corner of the story as characters are tested to find out how far people are willing to go to gain power, save a nation, find a loved one and even obey a long dead war lord. Shooketh to my very core doesn’t even begin to cover the sheer brilliance of the story. And all of this magnificence comes from Villoso’s excellent writing. Icon moves only!

IN SUMMARY

I love this book. I love this series. The detail and the emotion Villoso put into creating this world and characters is wonderfully evocative and gut wrenching. I’m so glad that we are getting more books in this world and more work from Villoso!!

Rating: 5/5 stars! ALL THE STARS!

Recommend: HELLS TO THE YES!!

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Let me know what you think! Have you read this series yet? (If no, go do that now!) Are you excited for more books set in this world? Have you ever been at a loss for words when writing a review for a book you love?

Happy reading!

~ Rendz

Queen of the Conquered | Review // Getting B****-Slapped by the Final Twist, Greatest Reading Pain Ever.

Greetings readers!

I’m reviewing my first book snek cover! *three cheers for Rendz for finally getting parts of her life together* I took a huge break in between reading this book because exams literally tried to end me. But I surpassed and hopefully passed my exams, so now let’s focus on the books!

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

via Goodreads

Pub Date: Nov 12, 2019
Publisher: Orbit
Goodreads

An ambitious young woman with the power to control minds seeks vengeance against the royals who murdered her family, in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy world embattled by colonial oppression.

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people—and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.

When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of the ruling colonizers. But when she arrives, prepared to fight for control of all the islands, Sigourney finds herself the target of a dangerous, unknown magic.

Someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. As the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers… lest she become the next victim.

Queen of the Conquered reckons with the many layers of power and privilege in a lush fantasy world—perfect for readers of V. E. Schwab, Kiersten White, and Marlon James.

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*Thank you HBG Canada for the ARC*

The Likes

Sigourney…was well an unlikable character to say the least. I mean it and yet I really enjoyed reading her character. She is angry, unsympathetic, and full of hatred. Don’t get me wrong, I was frustrated with her every step of the way. She makes horrible decisions and spends most of the book trying to convince  herself and the reader that she’s not such a terrible person like the elites. Which she’s not…entirely a bad person. And yet she has her really bad moments, but when you look at the big picture could she really have followed any other route? Simple answer: Yes, but it would have made her life 1,000,000x more complicated, the next question is whether she found it was worth the trouble.

Marieke is a boss. Totally amazing. I loved everything about her. She was spitting the truth left, right and center!

Løren was also pretty amazing. He was a little late to the game, but I still really enjoyed his character and the huge development he contributed.

Others…gosh. All the Fjern/Klongelig, I don’t remember exactly what the race was called, but basically all the white people were horrible. Yes, all of them. Were they all on the same level of horrible? No, some were better than others, but still arghhh I couldn’t help but get angry whenever they walked onto the page

This is not-so-fictional

The countries and geography may be fictional, but the stories were very real. The depictions of slavery, abuse and genocide were very much real. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart, it makes you feel uncomfortable, it is a bloody, tragic and angry story. Callender did not hold back and you can definitely read their anger in every word on the page. There is an absolute horror in this fictional story that has so many ties to a real history.

It’s a hard-hitting story and very relevant to the times we are living in, particularly the history and present of discrimination against black people. The entire concept of colonialism and how it has tried to destroy the spirits of so many cultures, but the strength of the people to rise up against it. Yes, it’s a hard story to read, but what is your discomfort to the reality of these truths?

The Magic

It was such an interesting addition to the book. I like how it was unique to the individual, although I felt like some of the powers that were presented were a little too similar that I was confused at one point about who had what kind of power. Sigourney’s mind-reading power really was interesting, although it did have it set backs. I mean having the power to know what others are thinking sounds great, until you actually know what everyone is thinking and things get difficult. Other powers, I can’t talk about because spoilers, but still it really was a cool addition.

The End

I was having this horrible feeling in the last four chapters that I had not gotten that BAM moment of just when everything hits the fan or when this huge revelation pulls through. There was all this build up, build up, build up and it sort of fizzled out at one point and I was feeling deflated. But then we get to the third last (?)/second last (?) chapter and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh the revelation. THE REVELATION. I couldn’t believe it and at the same time I could, I ignored the signs just like Sigourney. Then we get to those last two chapters and ahhh it is all high stakes! I totally think it was worth the wait.

The Questionable

Lots to take in at a time

The book takes several tangents basically every 2 pages. Since Sigourney has the power to read minds, so it’s not exactly a story told in first-person. It’s almost as if she is an omniscient narrator because she reveals everybody’s thoughts and tells lots and lots of stories. And while I liked this loophole in the narration, I also felt like it was so much information to take in, back stories I didn’t really care about and I would have rather just not known everything people were thinking. And I feel like thinking this is not exactly fair because this is something that Sigourney struggles with herself and revealing these stories has the reader experience what she is experiences. But my goodness is felt like it was a lot of useless information to take in. It also made getting through this book a whole lot tougher because I didn’t care for these characters yet or at all.

It’s not a huge fault and it does serve a purpose, but I felt like it made this reading experience longer to get through.

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Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. It does take a while to get through (took me longer because I accidentally started it before exam season and didn’t finish until after). On top of the fact that it is a poignant and truthful tale, it is entertaining, heart-pounding and intense!

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

Recommend: Oh yes!

Let me know what you think! Have you read this? Did you like it? What are your favourite rage-inducing books? If you could have any kind of power, what would you choose?

Happy reading!

~ Rendz