Review - Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

 

 

Title: Phoenix Extravagant

Author: Yoon Ha Lee

Pages: 352

Publisher: Solaris

Release Date: 19th August 2021

 

Blurb from Goodreads:

Dragons. Art. Revolution.

Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint.

One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers.

But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes—and the awful source of the magical pigments they use—they find they can no longer stay out of politics.

What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight…

 

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My Review:

 *I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Rebellion and NetGalley*

Gyen Jebi is an artist whose homeland has been invaded by a neighbouring country.

Desperate for a job, Gyen is recruited to paint masks for the automaton soldiers of the Ministry of Armor, run by the Razanei invaders.

Jebi makes a horrifying discovery and hatches a plan to free the dragon automaton created by the Razanei.

Will Jebi succeed?

I was excited to read this book as I'd seen a lot of love for the author and I thought it sounded like an interesting read. However, I ended up being disappointed.

Jebi was an okay protagonist. There were times when I sympathised with them, but I'm left feeling like I don't know that much about them.

None of the characters really stood out for me, but my favourite was probably Arazi, because who doesn't love a giant mechanical dragon?

Apart from Arazi my favourite things about the novel are the diversity and the concepts in the book which I found very intriguing.

Reading this book was a struggle from the beginning as I couldn't seem to click with the writing style, but I kept reading because I wanted to see what would happen. Around halfway through I found myself losing interest despite the fact that I should have found the plot exciting, but I wasn't invested in the characters and have to admit that did skim a few pages.

Unfortunately, this was a book where, despite there being promising concepts, the execution didn't work for me.

I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this more.

Overall, this was an okay read.