The Warrior Maiden review

Thank you so much to Netgalley for my copy of this book.
I am completely obsessed with fairytale retellings so that was a big factor in what drew me to this book.
I loved our main character I thought she was bad ass and really relatable.
The only thing I felt it lacked was a bit of intense romance it all felt so chaste and uncomfortable.
I also felt this book was trying too hard in a religious sense it was a bit in your face at times. I have nothing against a book having religious elements but in this case I felt it went a bit overboard.
Overall it was a good read but it took me a while to get through.

I'm going to keep this brief because I'm personally disappointed. Dickerson's writing was lovely as usual but I really had problems with the following;
- taking an Asian character and transplanting her, divorced from her culture, in Lithuanian. This may have been unintentional cultural erasure but I was wincing a lot. Hua Mulan is a poem written by a Song dynasty female poet that meditates on filial duty. I get that reimaginings change things but there is a line where it is not our story to alter. There are plenty of (lesser known) folk tales of European origin that treat with a female warrior bucking societal expectations that could have been drawn on instead of taking this important tale away from its Chinese roots.

- I hated the Christian over tones. I'm afraid this is grating on me more with each book. It was worse here because there is no way Mulan would have been Christian. And I feel that many of the other fairytales used in Dickersons books were not Christian originally or not modern Christianity so it's got to the point where it's plundering from other religions disrespectfully.

- The way the MC loses her agency and becomes submissive in her arc to a man. No. We have too many books like this. I know it's a fairytale and romance is implied but at this point it's more original to have a female MC in a fairytale retelling who insists on being recognised as an equal.

Honestly, I would have swallowed this more if it hadn't been marketed as Mulan retelling. I think there may be some people who love this, and good on them. But I was offended and I am not Asian by any stretch of the imagination. I really hope Dickerson doesn't start on Irish fairytales, is all I can say based on this.

The Warrior Maiden in the Hagenheim Series is a stand alone but worth it to read the previous novels to know more about the Hagenheim family. This is loosely based on the story of Mulan, which happens to be one of the main characters. She goes to battle to save her family's home but as we know she is disguised as a man. There she meets one of her fellow soldiers, Wofgang a member of the Hagenheim family. They develop a friendship while hiding her identity. Wofgang's brother Steffan is part of the story and can't wait to learn more about him and what he will do. Throughout the story, Mulan feels she is never good enough due to her relationship with her father. Although she is willing to do whatever it takes to save her family and friends. She is definitely a warrior through the whole story. While this is not my favorite one, I still enjoyed getting to know new characters. Melanie Dickerson is one of my go to authors with clean content and twist on your favorite fairy tale. 3.5 stars.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Hagenheim series is, as I understand it, a collection of retold fairy tales set in medieval Europe. While Hua Mulan is broadly considered to be a fictional character (some people dispute this), it seems highly inappropriate to recreate this character (including her name and Asian ancestry) and plunk her down in Lithuania. Erasing an ethnic character's ethnic identity except for occasional exotic/othering references with little follow through or consideration is a form of whitewashing and it is, I feel, absolutely unacceptable. Dickerson should keep to Grimm fairy tales and not try to shove the folk heroes of other cultures into her distinctly white European fantasy mash-up.

I was pretty excited when I found out this was a retelling of Mulan, which was one of my favorite Disney characters. I didn't like it very much.- It just didn't sit right with me. An Asian girl, being plopped down in and Eastern European town. It was awkward and uncomfortable- that's pretty much how I felt the whole time I was reading it. The dialogue is awkward too and sometimes I felt bad for the characters.

I didn't like the Christian tones of the book, either. It felt like the book was trying too hard to be a "christian faith" novel. It didn't have to keep italicizing it's faith; It made the book to chaste, like you can't even give us a good heated kiss? It has to be super awkward.

The story of Mulan is surrounded by the Chinese culture, that I don't think meshes with the Eastern European culture. The Original Mulan is based of an ancient Chinese Ballad, and I would have like to see homage to the origin.

With all that being said,I am super excited to read other books in this series though, I want to see how the European filter works with other classics. I think the idea was great, but not with this particular fairy tale.

2.5/5

**I received an arc of this novel, in exchange for an honest review from the publisher, Thomas Nelson**

Melanie Dickerson is pretty popular for re-creating popular fairy tales and dropping the characters into Hageheim, her city in Germany. With her newest story, The Warrior Maiden, it is a Mulan re-make. While I have seen the Disney version, Dickerson did not follow that story line. She wrote something completely different. Not in a bad way. I actually really liked this version. Better than the Disney version.
Again, Dickerson takes a well-known Disney story and transforms it into a romantic recreation. I really don't know much about Mulan outside of the Disney version, but I enjoyed this one. Dickerson does a fabulous job at bringing Mulan to life with a back-story and the reasons why she joined the army to fight for what she believed in. She jumped off the page as a character.
In Dickerson's version, Wolfgang, the hero, realizes Mulan is a woman but he allows her to see her for who she really is and falls in love with her no matter what. The story is about sacrifice for the ones you love. Mulan sacrifices for her mother and Wolfgang while Wolfgang sacrifices for Mulan, her mother, and his brother Steffan.
The plot moves pretty quickly. I spent less than a day devouring the novel. I couldn't wait to see how the predictable ending would happen. Of course, it is a fairy tale, so it has to have a happy ending. Dickerson is wonderful at creating an ending to satisfy an romantic at heart. While the plot line was different than Disney, the romance felt predictable and pre-determined.
The spiritual element strength the characters. It did not interrupt the story or preach at the readers. Dickerson allowed it to flow naturally from each individual character. I enjoyed that.
Overall, The Maiden Warrior is a much stronger version of the Mulan story than the Disney version. I liked how heroic Mulan was and the back-story to her story. Dickerson invited me back to the setting I'm familiar with and kept me engrossed in the story. A must read for fans of Dickerson or any fairy tale story.
I received a complimentary copy of The Maiden Warrior by Melanie Dickerson from Thomas Nelson Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

So I love, love, love these retellings and Mulan is one that I was obsessed with as a kid. Since I'm such a 'I can do what boys do' type of girl, this was the book for me. The only thing was I just couldn't get past some of the cheesiness. The dialogue wasn't always realistic and I rolled my eyes a few times at their constant chastity. I do appreciate a YA that can be appropriate for all ages, but even to be weird about a kiss, eh, that's not the reality for teens ha! But otherwise a cute read.

This is by far the worst Mulan adaptation I’ve ever read.

“The Warrior Maiden” sees Mulan desperate to escape the future laid out for her simply because she is a woman and hungry for a future filled with adventure and the chance to be something greater than a wife when war comes knocking and she takes her late fathers place in the army. With men’s clothes hiding her secret she sets off to prove her worth as a soldier but complications arise and she must work with the Duke’s son to end the war and save the people she loves.

Okay so I should start by saying when I received this arc I had no idea it was part of a larger world but I was happy to see that it’s separate fairy tales for each book so I would miss some references but overall it shouldn’t hinder my reading.

That being said I really would love to hear how the other books play out because this was not Mulan’s story at all. We hit some of the classic beats from the original but the rest is altered to fit the new narrative going as far as to sideline our supposed heroine for the climax. Also apart from her appearance there is zero influence of Asian culture which is such an important component when retelling this myth, though I realize this takes place somewhere else where a majority of the population is Polish and Lithuanian I still think that the culture needed to be included somehow.

There was a lot of religion thrown in here as well and again I’m not sure if that’s a staple of this series but wow I felt like I was in Sunday school daydreaming about a badass heroine in battle only to get snapped out of it by sermons. And I know to make a strong female character they shouldn’t be one dimensional but this reimagining of the infamous character leaned way too heavily into the romance side which lead directly to her being discarded for the final showdown in favor of the male lead and that’s never going to work for me.

This was a huge disappointment and all I could think about were the rumors of Hollywood taking these kinds of liberties with the plot and the character of Mulan herself and I couldn’t be more horrified if that came to be. If you’re looking for a retelling of this classic story look anywhere else and save yourself the trouble of whatever this was.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I received this novel from net galley and the publisher. Thank you!
Mulan is a daughter of mixed heritage, but knows how to use a bow, but is terrible doing duties as a "wife". When her father dies, she disguises herself as a man to prevent her mother's home from being taken away. Her mother had set up for Mulan a man to marry, but she could not do it. It was prophesied by a friar and a priest that she would save the world from an evil man. Mulan does not have the strength as a man, but she believes deeply in God. Wolfgang is the son a duke and happens to meet Mulan in Poland to aid Duke Konrad, would is under siege by the Teutonic Knights. At first, he is angry as Mulan, not knowing she is woman since women cannot serve in the army, but due to Mulan's actions. However, as he gets to know her, he begins to respect and trust her. When Mulan's secret is revealed, he promises to protect her. They both begin to fall in the love with the other. When they prevent a strike from the Teutonic Knights, their leader seeks revenge by accusing Mulan's mother of witchcraft, a serious crime during those times. Mulan and Wolfgang travel to attend Mulan's mother's trial, where he has to confront his brother and keep the woman he loves safe.

Right, this wasn't for me. If you already love the author's other works, let's leave it at that and agree to disagree. If you want to know why this book wasn't for me, read on at your own peril.

First of all, I get that the series is retelling beloved fairytales through a Medieval European lens. It's an interesting idea. However, the cultural appropriation of Mulan doesn't sit quite right with me. The author could have left the name "Mulan" right out of the book, and we would all still have recognized the tale. After all, the story of a girl who disguises herself as a man to go to war and protect her family and country isn't unique to Asia. But because we're doing the whole "fairytale" thing, we have an Asian girl who was rescued from the battlefield and brought up as a Lithuanian. I feel like that because the author was working to shove Mulan into an Eastern European context, the rest of the story was just weird (considering the whole racial tension that would have overshadowed the cross-dressing issues).

Second, I did not know that this was a work of Christian fiction. I'm of a Christian faith myself, but I found all the prayers in italics quite distracting and maybe even a little artificial. It would have made more sense to me if the novel had been written in first person. But perhaps that's my preference, and due to me not being familiar with this genre.

Finally, I just thought the prose was a bit...juvenile? Like someone abused a thesaurus. But now my inner snark is leaking. Maybe I'm still angry over Mulan being dragged across a continent to serve as a series-linking plot device.

Again, if you loved this book, I'm happy for you. Let's just disagree amicably.