Here’s the thing: I have an issue with blood. It is a real thing rooted in trauma and it has grown worse with age. Here’s the other thing: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan very unexpectedly features an awkwardly large number of scenes where the protagonist either bites the inside of her mouth or scratches her hands and ruminates on the taste and/or presence of the blood. I don’t know if this is cultural or just a strange peccadillo for the author, but it is making me queasy just writing about it. It definitely made me ill while reading the book and I kept thinking, Why? Why are we biting our mouth again and commenting on iron?! It’s not like it was a very violent book. Or gory. So, I guess if you are sensitive in the same ways, then you have been warned.

Of course that’s not all I have to say about Daughter of the Moon Goddess. Nor is it the most important thing I have to say about it. I just said it because I meant it. We’re going to move on.

Xingyin grew up isolated on the moon—where her mother was banished as a new immortal, the moon goddess because of the displeasure of the Empress of the Celestial Kingdom. Just as Xingyin begins to discover who she really is and what she’s really doing on the moon she is thrown from her lunar home to navigate a space she has never known, keeping her identity a secret. When she ends up apprenticing beside the Prince she simultaneously puts herself in the most dangerous and more advantageous of situations—a win- or lose-all. But there’s only one thing she wants and she’s willing to do anything to get it, and that’s her mother’s freedom. The key to earning it? Her own magic, her determination, and her friendships—or are they a little more than friendships?

I read this book for the speculative fiction book club I am in. Though it is definitely fantasy (or romantasy), it is also YA, and a number of readers had a hard time with it, I think because they are not regular readers of YA. (Some of the phrases used in book club were “Twilight–y” and “juvenile.”) But these days the lines are blurred and people are going to have to give some space for the other generations and other life stages to read the same books with different expectations and in different ways. (The cumulative review on Goodreads is 4.10, which is impressive.)

I, on the other hand, enjoy fantasy, romance, romantasy, YA, and mythology, so this should have been like my favorite book ever. (Well, maybe that’s taking it a bit far.) And I did enjoy it. But I suppose it was a bit young for me in tone and in themes, like in the way the characters behaved. But sometimes I can understand and appreciate walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. I could do that here, for the most part. And then the writing style and the length of the book came in and… well, I am not entirely sure I want to read the second book in the Celestial Kingdom duology, Heart of the Sun Warrior. I would like it okay, but I would expect it to be too long and in a writing style I don’t fully appreciate.

Here is an example of Tan’s writing style in Moon Goddess:

“An attendant from the Fragrant Coral Palace arrived, bearing a tray of garments for the banquet. Glad for their gracious hospitality, I pulled on the yellow satin dress with turquoise beads thickly sewn into its hem and cuffs. A sea-green sash went around my waist, its silken tassels falling to my knees. The style of this garment was different from those in the Celestial Kingdom, leaving my jade pendant bared below the hollow of my neck. My only other adornment was a comb of pearls tucked into the crown of my head, as my dark hair flowed loosely down my back” (p215).

Yeah. So Tan is big on straight-forward (imperfect) delivery and lots and lots of description of clothes and hair. Though this paragraph is the beginning of a chapter, she wasn’t yet done with these descriptions; there is a second paragraph about the other person’s appearance. It would take a near-encyclopedic knowledge of semi-precious gemstones to even picture half of what all these people are wearing, which I tried to ignore because I thought maybe it’s important for the East Asian readers. But the kinda silly descriptors go even beyond that, like to the excessive use of the words “crimson” and “vermillion” to describe clothing. We know just how everyone’s hair is done in every scene and not because the description was woven into the action. There is so much telling in Tan’s writing, even building up to action scenes—sometimes skipping action altogether just to describe a setting, a meal, or, yes again, an outfit. It was all clear, sure, but I also found the style a bit annoying, not pretty.

And long. This is a long book and I’m not really sure why. I don’t feel like I read that much story (though I could have if she had gone into more depth instead of skipped over many scenes). But I do have many ideas of what food I could serve at a Moon Goddess party or book club dinner.

There is an argument to made for the flat (or 2D) style of the writing and it’s a decent one: this is based on myth or on the Chinese pantheon. So it could sound more like mythology and less like a contemporary novel. Yes. And in some sense that is true of this story at the bare-bones level. But mythology does not consist of half the amount of description that is here. Otherwise, I would have enjoyed the intimacy of the first-person as a teen character, mixed with the unapologetic story arch of mythology. In fact, I did. But that doesn’t excuse most of what’s happening here. And I did enjoy the Chinese gods and goddesses world-building, a whole lot. I thoroughly enjoyed the world Tan created, which—for obvious reasons—felt like some of my favorite wire-fu movies, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but with more unicorns and rainbows (not literally. Literally there were more dragons and riding on clouds).

I also enjoyed that the story went a bit off-script with both the structure and the romance (or love triangle). It really keeps you guessing. Where it didn’t go off-script at all was with Xingyin’s whole “What?! Why is everyone so into me?!” thing. She maintains her plainness and ordinariness all the way through the book while we watch every man and even some women (even the most desirable and attractive in the world) take one glance at her and immediately go gaga. “What?! Why?!” It’s obnoxious. And it’s been used as a device way too often in modern lit. We get it. She doesn’t know just how devastatingly appealing she is. Which means she’s a moron. Come on.

Despite this, there is some good sizzle without having to get explicit or raunchy. This is romantic without being very steamy, which some readers will enjoy. Though some readers find the romance(s) to be disappointing, I didn’t. Not really. Not ultimately. Though I will agree that at least one of the romances was not written out fully and therefore not as exciting or believable. Their time together is inferred, which may have had to do with the mythological tone, but we needed more “just hangin’ out” scenes with love interest number two. I just relaxed and believed Tan for the most part. This is YA. It takes place largely in the head and emotions of the POV character.

My last and most serious complaint: the friends are severely underutilized. Again, because it is YA, we are sitting really close to the protagonist. The book is not about them, it’s about her. But there are only a couple friends in this book (who show up way late) and I spent the first half of the book confused about which one was which. They had no depth, nothing to really carry their memory from scene to scene and, more importantly, they did very little for the story or even for the MC. Theya re certainly underdeveloped.

Which means there are some real flaws with this long-winded foray into Chinese mythology. And yet I enjoyed reading it. I just let things go, let it be. It wasn’t difficult to read. I wanted to know what happened, especially regarding the romance. But I wasn’t exactly riveted either, because I encountered way too many descriptions, way too few character- and plot-deepening scenes, and was often ill from the blood. There are other scenes of violence in this book, by the way, but they are not super graphic or anything. There is a scene where a character attacks another character in attempted assault. FYI. Plenty of readers will enjoy this book, especially if they like fantasy, romantasy, and are into YA. And if they are happy to veer outside the Greek and Norse myths for something different to most books on a Western bookshelf, even better. I think that was my favorite part: stepping into the Celestial Kingdom and Tan’s magical world.

“A palace you cannot escape is a prison nonetheless” (p17).

“’You’ll never grow if you only do what you’re good at,’ she had said. ‘The most difficult things are often the most worthwhile’” (p57).

“You, more than anyone, need to learn how to untether your mind from your feelings. Steady your thoughts and observe, before you plunge ahead. When emotions cloud us, disaster soon follows” (p91).

“But it was so with all knowledge, having just a little left you with a greater thirst” (p177).

“If I had learned anything over these years, it was that no one won in a war, not even those who thought they did” (p287).

“Words held power; they whispered falsehoods into reality, built reputations up or tore them down” (p399).

“The best lies were indeed those steeped in truth” (p414).

“I had been lauded for my bravery, yet I knew the truth—that I had done these things despite my fear. Because not doing them frightened me more” (p482).

“As I gazed across endless night, it dawned on me then, that our paths were forged from the choices we made” (p497).