I find it fascinating that this book has so many low reviews. I thought it was fantastic!

I'll be honest: I'm tired of all the Beauty and the Beast retellings. So when I found out this was a Mulan retelling, it was an instant must-buy. (Plus, B&N had a really pretty copy with gorgeous sprayed edges. This was my first fancy-edged book!) Mulan was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and The Night Ends With Fire did such a great job paying homage not only to the Disney-fied version, but also to the original source material.

Let's all take a moment to remember that the Disney versions are heavily cutesified in the name of marketing, shall we? Most of the original source material is dark AF.

As war comes to the Three Kingdoms, Meilin is faced with a choice: marry an abusive, ill-tempered man to provide her (equally abusive) opium-addicted father with a dowry.. or take control of her own fate, disguise herself as a boy, and enlist in the army.

Fueled by ambition, Meilin is aided by Sky, a prince turned training partner, as well as Qinglong, a sea-dragon spirit. But as the fate of the Three Kingdoms hangs in the balance, Meilin quickly learns she needs to be careful who she trusts.

I LOVED the way the author built the world of spirits and magic throughout the Three Kingdoms. It created such a satisfying source of tension for Meilin. I'm incredibly curious to see how Qinglong evolves as a character in the sequel.

Other readers commented on the repetitiveness of Meilin's thoughts and actions, but I didn't find them repetitive at all. Yes, she kept coming back to the same internal struggle, but each time she had new information or new perspectives to consider. This kept the story tense and often made me wonder where my own allegiances lie, too. By 75% in, I still couldn't decide which MMC I was rooting for, and that was such a satisfying feeling.

If anything, I found the final conflict a little rushed, but making it last any longer would likely have dragged on.