Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The good:

I love the original legend. I was very excited to dive right into a full novelization. I had such high hopes for full fleshing out. A lush retelling.

How did this hold up? Parts were quite fun. Perhaps a little of the beginning and the last 2/5ths of the novel were good and entertaining. I perked up nicely.

The bad:

The rest felt like a Sarah Maas school of literature romance. Tropey relationship three-way love-story stuff. You know, kinda perfect for YA fantasy carbon copy novels with all the same dark, misunderstood boy and the out-of-reach good boy. Most of the meat of the novel felt like this kind of filler. Lots of filler (at least to me) that bored me. It just skirted the meat of the legend and went on and on.


So, this is just my opinion, of course, but I'm tired of these old tropes.

On the other hand, there IS a very good novella in these pages. Not a full novel, but a great little novella that's tight and rich with lore and great characterization. If I had been presented that, I would have given this book a full five stars, easy.

I DO love myths, whether East OR West.

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