Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon (Review)

Date Finished: March 2, 2018

Page Count: 338

Genre: Fantasy 

            Oh my God, more fantasy Asianesque book reviews? Heck yeah! Ancient Asian culture is super interesting and by reading books like this I’m coping from the far away release date of SoG, for real CN American not everyone’s going to wait for that over here and I’ve already given up on waiting Cindy Pon in an amazing author. Unfortunately, this is going to be another one of my shorter reviews due to the fact that I don’t have the book on me being too lazy to renew it from the school library (I know how to renew books okay, I just didn’t feel like doing that) and I’m not getting it completed within the three-day timeframe due to every teacher I have wanting to give a test or a project in some shape or form. *coughcoughI’mlcallingyououtenglishteachercoughhack* But any who, bear with me as we get into the review!

            So thank you Cindy Pon for giving your main character a normal sounding name this time! Ai Ling was an awesome protagonist for a debut novel but I’m giving you a deduction for making her kinda Mary Sueish due to the fact that she was intelligent and broke the mold of women in Song (I’m pretty sure that’s which one it was) dynasty China (despite the story taking place in the Kingdom of Xia). She gets bonus points however for not ending up with love interest Chen Young at the end, being selfish and taking Li Rong’s heart to try to reincarnate him, and all the crap she had to go through to kill Zhong Ye + killing him with one hell of a kiss (it’s a long story). Although I just criticized the fact that Ai Ling is brave, let me go ahead and say it’s one of her best qualities. With Ai Ling being okay with taking risks and going out into the wild to save her father it leads to super interesting situations like Slaying a monster made of corpses that kills others in order to grow (best part by the way). It leads to some uncomfortable situations though like Ai Ling getting married to Zhong Ye and then marriage stuff!! Yay. I was right there with Ai Ling when Zhong Ye was getting all up in her grill and she was totally not okay with it.

            Then there was Chen Young, the love interest, the man with a sword, aaaaaaannd he wasn’t full Xian. Apparently, parts of him seemed rather Englishman so Xia people were really suspicious of him. I found this rather interesting to incorporate as it meant that there was more than just the Kingdom of Xia and the immortal’s domain/surreal places. Another really cool thing about Chen Young was the fact that he had a love interest as a child but she was given to his older adoptive brother. That’s right Ai Ling, you aren’t No. 1 in that boy’s heart. Deal woman!!!!!!!!1!! Sorry, but usually the protagonist gets the girl/boy or the boy/girl die or stabs them in the back like Lloyd and Harumi. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know that Harumi didn’t give nothing for Lloyd starting from the beginning and wants to have make him miserable by having him killed by okay I need to stop, this is a book review and talking about SoG when it hasn’t aired over here is depressing so it makes me happy when the protagonist doesn’t succeed in their romantic pursuits. Oh yeah, Chen Young’s back story was cool too.

            Li Rong reminds me of Jay. I cry every time because SoG still hasn’t aired in America just see a connection between Li Rong and the blue ninja since they always seem to be the one ot crack jokes to lighten the mood and can sometimes be hopeless flirts (Jay’s not too big of a flirt though). The biggest difference between the two is the fact that Li Rong dies (yeah, so far Jay hasn’t died. Nya, Zane and Cole have all died but came back to life because reverse time, rebuilt body and transformed from a ghost back into a human again respectively, yet Jay, Kai and Lloyd have pretty much remained untouched unless you count Kai wishing it all away in Skybound but then you’d have to say everyone who got stuck in the sword of souls died which would include Jay so tangents are fun). I’m surprised too. Li Rong was such a key character and while I was reluctant to have him join Ai Ling and Chen Young six or so chapters in, he became a key component of the team and I can’t believe Pon went and killed him like that. Granted, it was death by that corpse monster I mentioned earlier which makes it all okay since his death demonstrated the power of that monstrosity. I also wish to commend Pon on her decision to kill Li Rong since most authors don’t have the ball to kill off an important character that isn’t the main antagonist which was why Garamdon’s death was so upsetting and now he’s coming back but not really and where the hell is SoG CN! Give it to me now!!!!!!!! thus making this story seem very unique.

            Zhong Ye was the main antagonist and eh, he wasn’t too much to me. At the very least he was unique and hand quite a few idiosyncrasies to me, I just didn’t like his personality too much. So the cuy is basically collecting souls to prolong his life and he’s been doing that forever. This is bad because it prevents people from being reincarnated and it’s just selfish so Ai Ling has to kill him due to her past life volunteering to (whose name was Silver Phoenix by the way which makes no sense. Who the heck would name their child Silver Phoenix? Me. But I’d also give them a regular name in case they didn’t want to walk around saying their name was Silver Phoenix) out of love for the man he was? Something like that. So Zhong Ye actually was in love with Silver Phoenix, got Ai Ling (reincarnation) to marry him and though they’d be together. That’s how it was so easy for Ai Ling to kiss him to death (but there was more than just kissing going on okay, they were soul wrestling). The whole ordeal was kinda weird but what the heck, I read it.

            The other cool thing, which I’m pretty sure is just typical of Pon, was the word building and all the supernatural elements. It felt so very oriental and authentic (she did research though so that makes sense) and I’m glad Ai Ling was smart when it came to all the mythical creatures. She’d read all about them against her father’s wishes and then recall the information in her mind when she came across an otherworldly friend or foe. But yeah, I like me some high fantasy so this should have been expected and it’s almost redundant for me to continue talking about it at this point.

            But yeah! Silver Phoenix! Go read it if you like you some high fantasy or Asian culture or are like me and enjoy a good adventure story. I was eating this book up and had to moderate myself otherwise I’d end up reading it instead of Night which was required reading and far less interesting (also more depressing). This book is also a good read if you like mild romance stories since Ai Ling doesn’t get Chen Young! Yeee! He done runs away (not literally) before she can say “I love you Chen Young,” to go search for his father and Ai Ling’s all “okay then.” There is a sequel called Fury of the Phoenix though, so the two might confess their love for each other then, but I’m crossing my fingers hoping they don’t because there’s more to life than romance. I don’t plan on reading the sequel since I want to read Sacrifice, the sequel to Serpentine more, but if things add up you may see a review for Fury of the Phoenix form me someday though it’s unlikely.

            On a side note, I must apologize for all the Ninjago garbage in this review. I’ve been trying to not spoil myself but broke last Sunday when I was googling pictures of one of the new characters in season 8. So now my mind is flipping out and I can’t get over Harumi and her screwed up backstory, really good acting skills and super cool design Plus I’m happy that Lloyd is still single, not everyone on the main Ninja team needs to have a lover. Evil has never been so beautiful guys. So please, accept my apologies for not being 100% focused on this review. To make it up to you just take a look at what I’ve been freaking out over since SDCC 2017. SoG is sure to be the most beautifully animated, have awesome character designs, a fabulous music score and a super deep and dark plot (mostly the dark part since thing don’t get pitch black in Ninjago. It usually gets dark as in you can still see close things as silhouettes but season 8 seems like it’s going to be dark where you can only see 3-5 feet in front of you and I’m going to shut up now and put the link to the super awesome trailer).

 

REMEMBER TO CHECK OUT SILVER PHOENIX!

And forgive me for any super bad typos, I didn’t bother to check this review for mistakes. I'll probably start checking them again when these posts are actually grades and then I won't go on crazy tangents to much have to give and apology at the end of my review.