Date Finished: April 12, 2018
Page Count: 263
Genre: Fantasy
Kai Sen is
dead.
…
I'm crying
(but not really).
….
I’ll never
forgive you Pon.
…
Seriously,
you’re such a monster.
It was
still a great book though.
Ah yes, the long anticipated review of the sequel to Cindy
Pon’s Serpentine, so anticipated I
couldn’t contain myself when reading and skipped ahead when I was only about
100 pages into the book and kinda picked up on Kai Sen’s death so this got
really painful to read. But then Skybright (oh goody, I forgot Word doesn’t
think her name is spelled correctly) kept sense him briefly on one hand so he
might not actually be dead, but the way this book wrapped up made it seem like
a finale (who even writes only two installments in a series? You do one or more
alright? Two usually isn’t satisfying when you end things like this) with all
the character arcs wrapping up, but there could still be stuff explored with
Skybright seeing her new position and possibly Blossom, but what could even be
done with the characters other than the reuniting of Skybright and Kai and Sky
finally saying confessing her love for him which is stupid and not worth a
story, but I really loved the relationship of Kai and Sky (oh my God, that
rhymes) and it was good in this book to and screw Stone, but I NEED MORE PON!
*cries.*
…
If none of
that made sense to you, please accept my apologies; I just finished
standardized testing when typing this and don’t feel like doing anything (it’s
a struggle to even type this) much less my WHAP homework after school. I have a
lot of organized thoughts about what happened so sit back and star the
orientalstep because I’m going to rant about characters and related plot
point that were totally awesome and heartbreaking at the same time!!
First up we
have Skybright, the main character (still) but different because about a week
(more or less) has passed since the previous installment so what do you expect
me to say? The girl is more comfortable in her scaly flesh and is a practical
as ever till Kai “dies” and she goes to live in seclusion for four months
but she has this thing with Stone now. Remember Stone (sounds weird since
someone in my Chinese class has that name and I’m looking at him right now as I
type this)? I might not have mentioned him because he was meddling and
insignificant in the previous book, but he sure as hell isn’t now! He’s (大概)
Skybright’s new love interest. *Inhales deeply* AAAAAAAHAHHHHUUUGH! HOW DARE YOU PON!! I
supported Skybright and Kai (would the ship name be Kaibright?) and then you
have to go and screw everything up and make Stone mortal and in love with Sky
and have Sky lust for him as well?! The heck Pon! Then you rub salt in the
wound by having Skybright come to the conclusion that she and Kai can never be
together due to him now being head of the monetary (who fight against demons if
you’re wondering why that’s a problem) so she builds a wall between them and
only regrets it once he’s gone. ABSOLUTE GARBAGE PON!! Don’t get me wrong, the
plot is good plot that you wouldn’t expect to happen (sounds like something I
would do, not allow a happy ending) but I didn’t want that to happen Pon! A
regular unhappy ending might have still been satisfying if you didn’t kill of
the best character and open up the main character to be with the lesser match
(not to be mistake for Stone having a weaker character than Kai)! Nice going!!!
*Angrily stares a Pon through me computer screen.* But overall, Skybright was
normal, I’m not too satisfied with where her character went and worst I can say
is that she was boring in the beginning of the book and I didn’t care too
greatly for her on her own (her character is special because of the
relationships she holds).
Now we have
best character, Kai Sen! Sure, Kai Sen is one of the deadest characters (or is
he) but he will forever remain one of the hottest and most interesting
characters. Seriously, Pon’s descriptions of him were gorgeous and I
really loved what she did with him in this book. Kai wasn’t just the guy who
was Skybright’s love interest (in fact they didn’t interact too much in this
book), he was the guy who had good intentions but wasn’t exactly he could
follow through on them thus allowing him to have many mental struggles that I
loved reading about. It also helped that where Kai was a lot of the action was
happening so he by far the most interesting person in this book and I sat in
uncomfortable anticipation, waiting for the next time we’d get to see him.
Other than proving to be a great standalone character I feel like Kai truly
stole the spotlight and could very well have the potential to go somewhere
despite his death (sob). Don’t go toying with my emotions like that Pon, having
Skybright think Kai’s alive and then not be sure, that makes me think there’s
more in store for him, but when you close everything all nice and unhappy that’s
basically killing all hope. But still, an adventure where Kai finds himself in
the underworld and then tries to return to the surface could be awesome and
explore the place in depth thus helping to flesh out the full world of Xia.
What the heck, it’s unlikely that’ll happen so might as go write fan fiction on
it (correction, I don’t have time to write fan fiction).
Zhen Ni is
the next character and my feelings towards her are similar to the ones I hold
for Skybright: Zhen Ni was okay to have around and even interesting at some
points, helping to progresses the story but overall, not one of my favorites.
The girl got married to a demon but didn’t know it at first and ended up
trapped in her new home with other demons including her new half-demon child
that eats corpses (she did not birth the child by the way). Seeing Zhen Ni
explore her home gave us insight into our antagonist better than if we were
suddenly introduced to him at the end, but other than that I often found the
story was at its lowest when told frrm Zhen Ni’s point of view. She just wasn’t
a serpentine or magical monk running around fighting demons and when those two
are your competitors (and have been written well might I add), yeah you’re
going to lose the popularity contest. The relationship between Zhen Ni and
Blossom was cute though even if it was only explored a bit and I feel like a
short story could be written about that (especially when Blossom is older since
she’s like Skybright being half-demonic yet different since she’s aware of what
she is).
Finally we
have Stone. He was better in this book, more fleshed out in terms of character
due to being stripped of his immortal status but the love triangle, my Lord
that love triangle. It actually slightly existed in the first book but it got
so much pointier in this book. *sigh* Look, it’s not that I’m 100% anti love
triangle, but there are more polygons in the world than just triangles! Give me
a love square, or hexagon, or pentagon, or nth-gon, just something other than a
triangle! I hate hoe Stone seemed to do nothing but create romantic tension for
Skybright, there is so much more that could have been done with his character
without Sky always mentioning something romantic related when she observed him.
I want to know more about Stone’s past and see him interact with more than his
love interest (but only 6/7 hers) and green eyes Kai. I’m just disappointed.
But I do appreciate Pon knocking Stone down a couple levels, it truly added to
his character and actually peaked my interest in him as well as opened up his
job for Skybright (which I’m still not truly happy about). Either way, he was handled
well here.
Overall,
this was not the sequel I wanted. Was it still good? Yeah, it just isn’t as
good as Serpentine. Was there stuff I
would change? Yes. Absolutely. Need you even ask? I loved that Pon explored
other characters so that we could see more than Skybright. In addition to her,
Kai Sen and Zhen Ni were also narrating the story so that kept it interesting (but
it’s slightly worrisome, seeing how Pon might have done it because she felt the
story told form Skybright only would have been boring or Sky herself is rather
boring in this book) and I loved that. The world of Xia was a bright and full
of life as ever and I found myself engrossed in it quite a bit. The new demons
were particularly interesting seeing how they were grotesque, deformed monsters
that had human appearances unlike the ones form the first book. I even enjoyed
the small interactions between Kai Sen and Zhen Ni as well as Kai Sen and
Stone, and what the heck; Kai Sen was the best, hands down. I wish the characters
weren’t so restricted in who they interacted with as the cast was relatively small
in this book, not letting too many aspects of their characters be shown to my disappointment,
and I feel like the balance between high fantasy and romance which further
restricted their interactions. So don’t read this book if you want to remain in
bliss of Kai Sen being alive and there still being hope of everyone having a
happy ending (because here only Zhen Ni gets one). The writing here is
beautiful, the fantasy intriguing and commendable and the characters can
capture you’re eye, but man, the roman kills it (actually the collapsing caverns
kills Kai which is a super depressing chapter) and everything is slightly off
balance. If you still want to read this book read the first one before it as
little will make sense in this book and it’s just better to see how the
characters change from one book to the next (it’s been six months for most of
these people) so go ahead read Serpentine!
Otherwise, get lost. Lots of sad stuff happens in this book and while I’m all
for not having happy ending all the time I draw the line when you kill my
favorite as that’s just not cool. Even if you like Kai Sen and don’t want to
read about him dying, still read this book as the Kai Sen action is awesome in
this book. Okay, probably covered all possible aspects of who should read this
book and why, described the character, yeah I think I’m done here (though this
review does seem a bit unkempt but then again, have there been any that aren’t
lately?), so 再见你们！
Bonus! some orientalstep for your listening pleasure:
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