Spoiler review for Jade City by Fonda Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Based on the premise alone, I knew I’d enjoy this book. Jade City is often described as The Godfather but with magic, and while that comparison accurately describes the family politics and organised crime elements, it doesn't quite prepare you for how much of the novel is about honour, identity, and legacy.
But about a 100 pages in, I wasn’t sure I even liked the book. The pacing seemed slow, the specifics of how Jade powers work were frustratingly vague, and the characters seemed more one dimensional than I’d have liked. They seem to live and die by what they call “aisho”, but these rules are never described explicitly, and we aren’t told about what happens to people that break the rules. They’re dishonoured, I guess, but what does that actually mean?
An unfortunate side effect of this is that I didn’t get why I ought to root for No Peak over the Mountain clan, especially when Ayt Mada is set up to be such a compelling force that casts a shadow over everything. I guess that’s the mark of a well written antagonist – for the longest time, I was rooting for her. Maybe the author overdid this a bit, or maybe I’m just a freak, because I still think she’s kinda right, up until the end. Her only real crime seems to be that she grabbed power in an dishonourable way (and broke aisho? Couldn’t tell you). Other than that, she seems like a strong leader with a clever plan for the future of her people (which includes all of Kekon, not just her clan).
But Fonda Lee’s writing is immersive; the prose is effective, yet oddly unemotional. She doesn’t linger on moments that some authors might stretch out for melodrama, and instead provides a couple of perfectly eloquent emotional beats before moving on. After I got used to the whiplash, I began to enjoy this style, especially later on in the novel when things began to heat up.
In hindsight, I believe this was intentional. The mechanics only became interesting once I cared about the people using them. Unlike many fantasy novels, Jade City doesn’t pause to teach the reader its systems or exposition dump in a convenient training montage. Instead, it’s treated like something everyone in Kekon already understands. People wear it, fear it, and systems are built around it. The author allows the reader to experience Jade/the magic system as her characters would, and it requires quite a bit of trust (which pays off in the end).
The way Jade works isn’t as important as how it shapes the people who use it, and this is key to understanding the Kaul family. They’re obsessed with honour and legacy in unique ways.
Lan is struggling to not buckle under the weight of everything that was thrust upon him. He’s repeatedly shown to be a gentle soul, a peacetime Pillar, but circumstances force him to be a larger than life figure. The scene where he’s fighting the SN1 overdose and still effortlessly deflects Bero’s and the other guy’s gunshots really drove home the sheer power of Jade. It was the first moment in the book where I truly understood how Green Bones outclass normal people. I still don’t understand why Lan wouldn’t just remove some of his Jade until he recovered, especially in private. I understand that appearances are important to them and it was a show of strength, but this point seemed incredibly contrived to me.
Hilo starts out as a stereotypical shonen hothead with a lot of heart, but a brashness that is supposed to be endearing. I didn’t like him at first, but he grew on me by the end, after seeing his relationships with Shae, Anden, and even Lan. And of course, with the other fists. Lan’s death was pretty predictable; I could tell that Hilo was being set up to be the unwitting wartime hero that would have to take over. Still, this was well executed. Also, at one point, Hilo is described as eating “hot cereal” which is so weird and threw me off.
Shae’s attitude seemed unbelievably pigheaded — why would she avoid wearing Jade when her family clearly needs her? Why would she leave for some guy, and then continue to deprive herself even after coming back home with her tail between her legs? It didn’t make sense to me until it clicked that she’s a Kaul, and of course, she’s obsessed with honour in the same way her brothers are. Only, for a woman in such a male dominated culture, it presents differently. Of course it would. Her brothers earn respect by rising up to the patriarchal standard. For a woman like her, it comes from refusing to play by the rules and paving her own path. She spent her childhood trying to prove she’s as capable as her brothers, and her adulthood trying to prove she’s capable of holding her own without the Kaul name.
There’s an interesting line about a moment when she recognises the same dogged spirit in Wen – that women like them in a man’s world are either destined to be allies or incurable rivals. That’s definitely true of Shae and Ayt Mada.
Bero’s scenes were the least interesting to me, maybe because I couldn’t find any redeeming qualities in him to root for. Maybe he isn’t meant to be a sympathetic character, which is fine, but because I wasn’t emotionally invested in him, I just found myself bored by his chapters. Also, how did he know that Lan’s Jade was buried with him? That seems like a wild guess, especially since this isn’t the norm.
Despite being an imperfect book, this is still one of my favourite fantasy reads of the last five years – an easy 4/5. Also, I think it needs to be made into a TV show right now.
