DNF Review – Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, Book 1) by Fonda Lee (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 612 pages
Publisher:‎ Orbit
Release Date: November 7, 2017
ASIN: B06XRCBRX8
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Green Bone Saga
Source: Borrowed ebook from Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Jade is the lifeblood of the island of Kekon. It has been mined, traded, stolen, and killed for — and for centuries, honorable Green Bone warriors like the Kaul family have used it to enhance their magical abilities and defend the island from foreign invasion.

Now, the war is over and a new generation of Kauls vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city. They care about nothing but protecting their own, cornering the jade market, and defending the districts under their protection. Ancient tradition has little place in this rapidly changing nation.

When a powerful new drug emerges that lets anyone — even foreigners — wield jade, the simmering tension between the Kauls and the rival Ayt family erupts into open violence. The outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones — and of Kekon itself.”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in The Green Bone Saga. I borrowed this on ebook through Kindle Unlimited.

Thoughts: I stopped reading this at 50% of the way in. It’s not that it is poorly done, it’s just that it wasn’t for me. The world-building here is well done; the cast of the characters is fairly large but not too confusing. I am just not a fan of politically driven fantasy, especially with mafia-life themes like this. Previous to this I read Lee’s “Unteathered Sky” and thought that was good, but not great.

This is about two mafia-like groups that each rule part of the island of Kekon where certain people can do jade magic. This story starts up after a long war has ended and is about tension between these two main families, the Kauls and the Ayt. This is a lot about family legacy and the two groups trying to keep peace while still trying to gain power. It is intensely political and was full of characters that I didn’t engage with well.

The writing is easy to read, and the story was fast-paced. I picked this up to read knowing that it sounded like something I probably wasn’t going to enjoy; I kept hearing what a great fantasy this was, so I tried to give it a shot. The story felt very distanced and impersonal to me, we jump between many different POVs rather quickly. It wasn’t hard to follow who was who, but I didn’t find any of the characters or the story that interesting. I quickly tired of the mafia-like relationships between the two families and the rest of the citizens on the island. Then illegal drug trafficking was added to the story, and that is another thing I am just not interested in.

If you enjoy intense world-building with a lot of mafia inspired politics, you might enjoy this; it is well written. I just couldn’t get into the story and didn’t enjoy the characters, and I have a lot of other books to read right now, so I set it aside.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this has excellent world-building and is well written but the mafia tone to it and heavy political themes were not something I was interested in. When you add the constant POV switches and lack of engaging characters, I just didn’t have any desire to finish this. I spent a week trying to get through it (which is a long time to spend on a book for me) and finally decided to set it aside and move on to something else. Again, I understand why a lot of people love this book; the world-building is intricate and well done, and if you love that sort of mafia-family-feud stuff there’s a lot here to love. The subject matter, premise, and characters were not something I enjoyed I do not plan on reading more books in this series. I probably won’t pick up many Lee books in the future since I don’t seem to be a big fan of her writing style.