Book Review: Strike the Zither by Joan He

As a long-time lover of words, I firmly believe that every person can love reading as long as the right book is found!

Hello Everyone!

(Intro) My Rating: 2.5/5 ⭐️

What can I say, I have been a sucker for Asian-inspired fantasy recently. When I first saw this book sitting on the “Barnes and Noble” shelf, I was mesmerized by the elaborate cover art, catchy title, and the seemingly intricate plot illustrated by the back-cover summary. Unfortunately, I had high expectations for the story that were unfulfilled by the end of my story digestion.

In Summary:

Strike the Zither is a story set in a fictional fantasy world inspired by ancient Chinese culture. The story begins amid a war led by the fierce protagonist, Zephyr. Despite her fiery personality, the audience is led to believe that Zephyr is not a soldier in battle but a posh strategist at the right hand of lordess Xie Ren. The story thus follows Zephyr and her muddled journey of betrayal, death, reincarnation, and the kitchen sink amidst a seemingly pointless war as a pattern of convoluted plot twists and headache-inducing characters emerge from the book’s pages.

My Thoughts:

While I had many moments throughout the story where I had to set the book down and hold my head in my hands, my main gripe was the characters and the relationship between the characters. In my personal opinion, Zephyr (Nickname: “Peacock” and Birth Name: “Qilin”) is an insufferable protagonist. From the beginning of the book, I could tell that the author meant for her to be a flawed, but likable young girl swayed by the naivety of her age, but I could not stand being in her head.

The novel initially characterized Zephyr as a posh noble, from her dismissal of the “peasants” that she was supposed to be saving under the orders of her lordess, the pretentious manner in which she wielded her fan, to her emphasis on her role as a “strategist” and not a “warrior”. However, this characterization was immediately dropped in favor of emphasizing her “cleverness” as the strategist to her lordess, Xie Ren. Zephyr's opinions of Xie Ren’s sworn sisters as immature and childish underscore her superiority complex. While this was meant to begin her journey into becoming a “good person” (as it is later revealed that she was a god being punished by living as a mortal), the immediate drop in personality made the arc unbelievable and jarring.

In addition, the individual characters of Xie Ren, Cloud, and Lotus bored me. The potential to develop these girls into interesting warriors was dropped in favor of following the plot of a convoluted war. Without the presence of interesting characters, the story itself fell flat and made me disinterested in the “elaborate” strategies of the war. I often found myself disappointed in how interesting leads would be created for characters but then would be immediately dropped. For example, when Zephyr was reincarnated into Lotus’s body, I had to set the story down and take a lap around my room. Not only did I consider the “Zephyr is a god!” plot twist unexpected, but, quite frankly, stupid. As the audience, I had questions about the friendships between the sworn sisters. How did they come to be so close? What were their stories? Was there anything deeper in their relationship? Instead, I was met with the dismissal of the characters in favor of Zephyr’s romance with Crow.

The romance of the story was fast-paced, boring, and somewhat unnecessary. I found the romance to be unrealistic and cliche. I was not interested in the relationship between the two characters because their chemistry did not intrigue me. Their interactions seemed forced and soulless, devoid of any personality other than their physical attraction for one another. When Crow took an arrow for Zephyr, the audience was left to question “What was the point?” as they were still basically strangers to one another. Rather than waste time on the romance, why not delve deeper into the minor characters that were seemingly shoehorned into the middle of the story? I found the gods such as Dewdrop and the soldiers such as SikouHan impossible to care for because of their lack of presence. If these characters are so significant, why wasn’t more care put into their backstories and why weren’t they mentioned in the beginning of the story?

Regarding the plot itself, I found the concept of the war to be disappointing. It seemed as though the complexity of the characters was sacrificed for an attempt at an intricate war, but the execution of such fell flat. The beginning of the war was due to a fight for power, a basic concept that could have been elaborated upon with the introduction of complex relationships or commentary on the social standings of the fantasy world. Simply, the war bored me and Zephyr’s explanations of strategy did not engage me. I found her plans to be pointless and convoluted, the sacrifices made in vain as I did not care for the land or the characters. I did not feel for the culture of the world nor the personality of those who inhabited the land.

With the worldbuilding, I did not feel the expanse of the world as intended. While the map on the first page of the story helped, every description of a character or landscape was a “tell” rather than a “show”. A reader audience is not stupid. Why continuously talk about how clever Zephyr is and how kind Ren is when there are barely any actions that back up the claims? Zephyr’s plans are over complicated and rely heavily on plot armor, such as when she banked on the fact that Circada would help her once she revealed that she was always secretly on Ren’s side, or when Miasma so easily believed that Zephyr would betray Ren even though Miasma is meant to be a cunning war lordess.

The strengths of the book were its style and portrayal of a rewritten cultural story. I bend so easily for stories with simplistic writing styles, especially in elaborate fantasy worlds as it makes the worldbuilding much less daunting to consume as a reader. The way that He writes is artistic, but not confusing. She has an intricate vocabulary with the weaving of cultural terms that are easy to digest with either a quick Google search or context within the text. Additionally, I appreciated the incorporation of musical instruments and music as a theme, even if it may not be to my taste. The pacing of the story was quick, but not unrealistic. The timelines could be easily followed and imagined, something that made the plot easier to consume.

Overall, this story is one that I was initially intrigued by but was quickly disappointed due to its simplistic characters, boring worldbuilding, and confusing plot. However, the author has the passion and potential to create something great. I intend on reading the second story in this duology, and hope that my criticisms are disproven.

Would I read it again? ☒

Lots of Love,

Kaylee ♡