Judging by that cover (because who wouldn't), the promise of magic and political intrigue, I was hoping that Song's Hua Mulan, I mean, Hai Meilin would soar above the former's overbearing shadow and grow into her own complexity, becoming a character that I could root for and love.

Unfortunately, I'm still yet to be impressed.

The amount of close resemblances this book has to the animated Mulan -- from the series of events, plot points down to the emotional beats (revealing them here would be spoilery, but anyone remotely familiar with the Mouse's Mulan would recognise these things in a heartbeat, so much so that you would be able to predict what's happening next, and you would be correct, to your own disappointment) -- made it difficult for me to separate the two at times. Sure, these things are 'spiced up' with a magic system and the political intrigue between 'Three Kingdoms' and, unlike That Mulan, there are new characters whose names are a questionable mix of Chinese and English to keep things interesting? (Why Liu Sky, why). At this point, I can't tell if I was sensing something different in Meilin or whether I was that desperate to see this book breaking out from its original mould that I was just merely grasping at straws. Certainly, I did not understand the attractions behind Meilin and other parties; there is no real meat behind them, no emotional pull except for the pull of circumstances -- a checklist, the narrative trying to tell us that they must be in love now because x, y, and z happened. I just didn't feel it. The same thing goes for Meilin's character arc, to be honest. In the end, there was an admittedly cool thing meant to highlight her greatness, it just left me feeling empty.

I was briefly excited when 'The Night Ends with Fire' eventually diverges, and it does, kind of, for a bit, not really... because guess what happens near the end of Mulan? A scheme that was, once again, replicated, and, not only replicated but let's say that Meilin has to pick out a new name for herself, and the name she'd chosen is not at all subtle.

Perhaps I was too harsh. Perhaps I'd placed so many unreasonable expectations on this book that did not align, at all, with the author's intentions for it. I used to jump on every own-voiced Asian fantasy because I was starving for them. Now that the market has warmed up to our stories, I'm happily passing this series onto those who would appreciate it more.

Anlai - gambler and with an opium addiction, Meilin's father decides to marry her off to a wealthy husband in order to fund his addiction. Running away from her fate, Meilin disguises herself as a boy and joins the Imperial army.

As a huge fan of Mulan, this Mulan-inspired fantasy won my heart. Song draws characters easy to root for - from being oppressed to finding her confidence, the main character arc is satisfying to follow. Meilin/Ren isn't a typical heroine, instead, amidst impending war, she is selfish and aspire to power. Soon she learns about her unending greed, making her deeply embroiled to a suspicious sea dragon. I found myself cheering for her even in all her flaws. The characters are enigmatic, deceitful, often bound to duty or driven by pure vengeance. The romance plays an important role in the story and I absolutely adored it - it felt organic and engaging.

For this Chinese history lover, one of the compelling aspects of this book is being inspired by the Chinese classics 'The Three Kingdoms' (三國演義). One is able to revisit iconic places/ figures interwoven with Cardinal spirits. The straightforward world building allows a full immersion into a setting loaded with mythical beasts and spirit realm. With lyrical prose, the narrative offers exhilarating war battles (reminiscent of THE POPPY WAR series) that paint certain urgency in the pacing.

It was juicy to read the several manipulation of the mind, to witness our protagonist's desire to be accepted for who she was. Since friendship/brotherhood is a highlight in the original Mulan, I had expected to see more of it (probably in the next installments). One small complaint is that, while there are original Chinese words throughout the story, some Chinese names (such as 'Sky' and 'Winter') made me cringe.

With romance and magic leaping off the pages, THE NIGHT ENDS WITH FIRE is a retelling that stays true to the original story of Mulan. Ultimately, this novel examines ambition and its costs. Read this if you enjoy a fast-paced and Chinese-inspired fantasy with mythical creature(s) that cannot be trusted.

The Night Ends with Fire by K X Song is an excellent read for fans of Mulan retelling that lean toward the fantastical side of the spectrum.

Pros
1. Taps into a nostalgia vein I didn't know I had
2.wonderful near poetic writing style keeps the reader engaged
3. beautifully describes settings helping me fully dive into the story

Cons
1.Leans a little heavy into its nature as a retelling/re imagining in places
2. Character work feels a bit flimsy in the first fourth of the story.

Everything in this story was just so emotionally charged. I felt every word of this book. My heart fluttered, raced, pounded, and even stopped. I can’t wait enough for the next instalment.

what have i gotten myself into

no thoughts. just numb.

THIS WAS EXCEPTIONAL !!!! k. x. song the woman you are. best believe I WILL BE SEATED for the sequel and for any future works from this author !!

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for kindly sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review !!

3 stars

I’m giving 3 stars as I think this is a 3 star y/a novel. If I was rating based on an adult novel I’d say 2 at most.

This isn’t really my cup of tea. I’ve already seen the Disney version of Mulan. I was hoping for a lot more world and character building and this just isn’t it. I finished out of respect for the author and NetGalley.

For a youth this would work, because they’d be familiar w the story and it would likely hold their attention…I dont know I’m not a youth anymore, but I could see my kid totally loving this.

For an adult fantasy, I thought the tone of it read very YA. Aside from that I found the story to be unoriginal and the plot and characters not established nor developed enough for my liking, which result in the novel to feel one note. The book simply just wasn't for me but perhaps it'll be able to find the audience that is more suited for it later on.

Have you ever thought to yourself, what if George RR Martin woke up one day with an orientalist fantasy and wanted to write a Mulan (a la Disney 1998) fanfic? Well, K.X. Song has done basically just that with The Night Ends with Fire. This is, quite frankly, one of the worst books I have ever read. It's unoriginal, cringey, poorly written, and I genuinely cannot think of a single good thing to say about it. The characters are flat and poorly developed, and the relationships reflect that as well.

I try not to pass too much judgment on diaspora authors because I am aware that not all diaspora folks engage with their ancestors' culture in the same way, but at times I really had to question whether or not Song has ever actually engaged with Chinese media in any way, shape, or form. This book, rather than feeling like a Chinese-American author's exploration of Chinese culture and trying to bring pieces of that into their writing, felt like an orientalist fever dream. Again, I do realize this is a very subjective thing, so I won’t dwell on it too much and will let you judge for yourself, but I genuinely felt like this book felt like a bad parody of a c-drama rather than an homage to one.

Onto other, more concrete things that I disliked about this book. Firstly, this book just felt like really bad Disney Mulan fanfic. I can understand the nostalgia and love for Disney's Mulan - I was also of the generation where this was one of the only representations of me and my culture in mainstream children’s media, so I, too, have an unhealthy love for this film despite recognizing now as an adult how flawed it is. However, there are legit play by play scenes from the film that have just been haphazardly transplanted into this book, and it’s honestly just cringey and unoriginal. I can appreciate an easter egg here and there, but it was just too much, too close, and too frequent, for it to be considered tastefully done, in my opinion. I’m not even going to dive into the plague on traditional publishing that is poorly written fanfic being published, but I feel like if you’re going to republish your fanfic as an original work, it needs to be way less obvious that you just strung together scenes from the source material and added some gratuitous violence to make it edgier.

Secondly, if there’s something that I will always criticize in Chinese-inspired fantasies, it is the naming conventions and nonsensical use of Chinese words throughout the text. As a disclaimer, I know that this is a pet peeve of mine, and probably won’t bother other readers as much, but this pissed me off a lot and this is my review, so here we are. The naming conventions in this book are absolute NONSENSE. Like are we doing pinyin names, or are we doing weirdly translated English names? Because for what reason do we have three siblings, two of which have pinyin names, and the third of which is named Plum. Do not get me started on the main love interest being called Liu Sky (and his brother Liu Winter). LIU SKY. This is so fucking unserious I actually screamed out loud the first few times it appeared on page because I could not believe how stupid it sounds. I feel sorry for whichever poor audiobook narrator has to get through reading those names out loud without laughing. The pinyin names are also, for a lack of a better word, cringey? Juvenile? I don’t want to judge this too hard because Chinese names are extremely varied and sometimes nonsensical, but the main character being called Meilin is just a bit of an ick to me. It’s not that this doesn’t sound like an actual name (and I truly mean no offense to anyone named Meilin), but it kind of gives the same energy as naming your main character John Smith, you know what I mean?

Another thing that irks me personally is the random words that the author chose to write out in Chinese pinyin, and then subsequently translate it in text. There’s no consistency, and again, just looks stupid to me. For example, “The aroma of shaokao barbecued meat….” - shaokao just means barbecue. That is like saying “barbecue barbecued meat”. It’s stupid. This isn’t the only example from the book (“baichi idiot” is another one I can remember off the top of my head) but it just irritates me to no end.

Thirdly, I could almost look past all of this nonsense if the plot and/or characters were actually good, but unfortunately, there was really just nothing there. Like I said before, the book relies too heavily on being a Disney Mulan retelling, and as such, doesn’t really do enough to establish its own characters. The characters are all incredibly one dimensional, and none of the relationships are developed in any way that is meaningful. The main character has a couple of love interests, both of whom just randomly declare their interest in her after no significant or compelling interactions that would lead them to feel that way. One of the things that makes Mulan 1998 so fun is Mulan’s friendships with her fellow soldiers, as well as her dynamics with her dragon and cricket, but none of these fun relationships are anywhere to be found in this book. Meilin is a little too edgy and prickly to actually develop any believable friendships with her peers, and honestly, she’s just not a very complex and interesting character, nor are the other characters, so it only makes sense that their relationships are also boring.

All in all, this was just not a good book, in my opinion. I realize I am being super negative here, and if I weren’t on a plane when I read this, I’m sure I would have DNF’d it. I’m sure there's an audience for this book, I just cannot quite see who it would be for.

OH MYYYYYYY. I was enraptured by this beautiful cover and THE BOOK DELIVERED. This was so great! I thought it was a standalone tho so the cliffhanger UGHHHHH

I enjoyed this immensely! I read nearly 80% in one sitting before I had to force myself to sleep because it was 1:30 AM. I loved Meilin and her unapologetic ambition, we support women’s wrongs! All of the characters were so interesting and multi-faceted, I could never guess their intentions which was stressful but thrilling.

The romance (PLURAL???) was so captivating. I loved Ren and Sky’s relationship and was having a great time with them until Lei showed up and I was like HUHHHHHHHH and I am SO INTRIGUED by him and really looking forward to seeing what happens in the sequel!

I did find the ending a bit unsatisfying. I think the spirit magic throughout was a little confusing and there’s a lot of unanswered questions there. I still loved it tho. Can’t wait for the sequel and will def get a physical copy of this one!

I stopped after chapter 10 (19%). It’s easy to read, easy to follow along, and prose is comfortable.

It really feels like a retelling of Mulan rather than a fresh, new story, and I don’t feel invested in it. That said, I love that diverse voices are being championed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC.