Friday, February 16, 2018

Serpentine by Cindy Pon (Review)



Date Finished: February 13, 2018
Page Count: 274
Genre: Fantasy 

            This was refreshing. This was amazing. This was the exact blend of fantasy and character/world building/exploration I was looking for in the past few disappointing novels, and my mood has been uplifted after finished this book. This book also has a really cool cover in case you didn’t notice, which is what got me interested in the book last Saturday anyway. That and the title. I actually had a phobia of snakes and hated them before reading this, but now I realize how cool snakes can be, though I still have a phobia. Never trust a snake guys, they’re crafty and good at getting you to fall into their traps. Now that I think about it though, I was actually born in the year of the snake…. Welp, my statement doesn’t necessarily apply to people, so take it with a grain of salt! All this aside however, let me tell you how great of a book Cindy Pon’s Serpentine is!
            For starts, I was super happy I could correctly pronounce all the names and locations having taken nearly two years of Chinese so far. (Speaking of Chinese: 新年快乐!) But I digress, that was just something personal that I really enjoyed about the book. However, one of the strange things about this book was that the main character, Skybright, was named, well, Skybright! I get that here only the highest ranking people got to have regular Chinese names (after a while), but I find it still rather odd that her name would be something as English/Western as Skybright. Why not translate Skybright into Chinese?! Then it’d be, 天明 or, Tiān Míng (which technically means, “dawn”, but individually “天” means “sky” and “明” means “bright” but whatever. On a side note, if you switched the two characters around it’d be 明天, tomorrow). Heck, even Skybright’s mistress, Zhen Ni, and lover, Kai Sen, had Chinese sounding names! Other than Skybright and a couple other characters though (I’m looking at you Stone), the names generally fit the setting, and boy what an amazing setting it was!
            I’ve been missing the high fantasy/science fiction setting I usually read about as they make it so much easier to do things and screw up the world in tons of unique ways. The world Pon created was high fantasy AND historical which I fell in love with immediately. It reminds me a lot of the Touhou Project but with more of a Chinese vibe instead of Japanese. So you have people living normal lives in this world, like Skybright and Zhen Ni were doing, and you have monks who do Buddhist or Daoist or Confucianism (probably not Confucianism though, that more about social hierarchy than spiritual rights and wrongs) stuff along with slaying demons if they ever come around like what Kai Sen was doing, and you have the people of Hell/the Underworld who do your typically underworld stuff most of the time. Since the border between the Human world and the Underworld is breached in this book and demons are turning people into the undead, there are tons of chances for Skybright to transform into her serpentine form and rolls some heads and Pon thankfully didn’t let an opportunity pass her up. While the action scenes weren’t the most blood pumping action scenes I’ve ever read, they were extremely vivid and fluid, being able to keep up with the crazy commotion and at the same time clearly describe the few moments Skybright got to jump into action. Those scenes were probably my favorite in the whole book and I’d love to draw Skybright in action taking out some of the undead, but she never wears clothes in her serpentine form. Next time though, I’ll draw me a Skybright for sure!
            Aside from the action there was a bit of *gasp* romance, but I was okay with it in this book as there it was outshined by all the non-romantic moments and when there were romantic moments it was seasoned nicely with plot. For example, Zhen Ni falls in love with Lan, the girl of lesser nobility who visits the Yuan family manor at some point in the book. This makes Skybright jealous that Zhen Ni cares for someone else (finds some other friends girl, and not creepy stalkers like Stone), and the relationship greatly angers her mother which causes her to beat Skybright (cause Skybright protected Zhen Ni obviously) and Lan to be sent home. With Lan gone Zhen Ni gets super upset to the point of setting out on her own to see Lan one last time despite the hordes of demons wandering about that could capture her. Skybright, being the loving sister figure to Zhen Ni follows her, and then all sorts of conflict happens which would spoil the ending. I feel generous today because it was such a good book and it’s more fun to read books when you don’t know the ending it ends in a cliff hanger so I hope more people will be exposed to this lovely work of fantasy.
            Okay, I’ve covered the setting, the fight scenes and the romance scenes which means it’s time to get to the best part now. Skybright, the main character half-snake demon, was punctual, straightforward and often times the no-nonsense type. Her mind was constantly troubled with her origins and grappling with her new serpent powers which led her character down the path of lots of self-development. Her journey was often plagued with trouble though as Skybright was extremely loyal however and would do anything to keep her loved ones safe from potential, including herself which is where most of her problems came from the fact that she tried to hide her true nature from her loved ones which I found to be quite interesting. Hopefully this isn’t a problem in the sequel though, characters need to grow. But as for in Serpentine, Skybright was one of the most developed characters and one that grew the most which made me happy since she is the main character and doesn’t deserve to get the short end of the stick.
            As for side characters, they were nothing more than just that! It’s not that they were bad necessarily; I can’t think of anyone I disliked in the book, it’s just that there isn’t much to say about most of them. Zhen Ni causes tons of trouble despite her adventurous nature and is a plot device. Kai Sen is the love interest, good hearted, good looking guy that can fight and stand firm in the face of opposition, but I had trouble seeing him as much other than a love interest. Stone was Yukari Yakumo done wrong but it matter not to me, he was a plot device also and his detached personality was refreshing. Everyone else was just a plot device/archetype so there’s no point in mentioning them except for in this little shout out right here; without you guys, the world of Serpentine wouldn’t be nearly as in-depth or divers as it is.
            Overall, did I like this book? Yes I did. Did I like it enough to read the other books in the series? Yep, I’ve already got Sacrifice on my want to read list. Do I think you should read this book? Well, I didn’t spoil the ending for you so you can assume I want you to go and see how good this book is for yourself. This here is some great high fantasy for young adults with not too much romance and interesting characters and setting that will bring you right into the plot. Just know there is a ton of Chinese names in there so you might not be able to pronounce everything. 再见你们, see you in the next book review!

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