Jade Legacy

Even when we win, we suffer.

Standing ovation! Jade Legacy is a marathon of a book because it is all go, go, go. There is so much story, time that elapsed and characters covered that I was dizzy thinking back on the earlier chapters.

...our lives were shaped by the deaths of men we never knew.

Fonda Lee uses the progression of time carefully and doesn't handhold the reader to introduce them to when and where we are. A simple "time elapsed" counter starts off the next skip forward and you're dropped in to it. The seemingly effortless passage of time and bringing the reader up to speed and drop them right in the action was expertly done and the time skips didn't come across as jarring or disorientating.

Only children and gods are arrogant enough to judge what they can't understand. There's no point being afraid of their opinions.

Fonda Lee has delivered a fantastic finish to an exceptional series. I won't be able to say anything that other reviewers haven't already so I will just reiterate the fantastic world building of Kekon and beyond. This story happened in the streets and neighbourhoods of Janloon, I experienced them through the characters and truly felt I was in their world. I was so invested in the world that I didn't realize how deep the immersion went.

The scale of the world and ability to maintain the immersion is astounding. Lee spends the same effort introducing you to other regions of Kekon, the foreign countries and each with their own cultural and political structures and you see their growth over the decades.

He didn't see how he was qualified to the future Pillar of No Peak for any reason other than bloodline, nor why he should feel compelled to accept that destiny, when anyone with an ounce of logic would know that heredity was not enough.

The rules, ethics and beliefs of the clans and Green Bones are laws onto their own rights and each continent treats those rules, and those that follow them, differently. The reader understands the challenges of being a Green Bone in a jadeless society and can understand how discrimination can develop.

I haven't experienced this level of depth and understanding of society in a very long time and will be thinking about the world Lee created for a long time.

You'd think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn't work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Jade Legacy (and the entire series) was the characters. Wow! There is depth, nuance and growth across all characters. Major or minor roles are given this exceptional treatment as each family member, friend or bystander is influential in the story.

Even the biggest tigers grow old.

Most importantly, no one is safe. A part of what made this story a relentless go, go, go feeling is that even in the midst of a decades long Slow War death could lurk right around the corner. This ever present threat against characters you have become invested in allowed me to be even more fully absorbed in the story.

The younger generation should start fresh with a real chance at peace. But our generation - we still have our debts to pay.

How long has it been since a book made me cry? It's been years and my Seinfeld "vomit free" streak of not crying was broken with Hilo's death. This was absolutely heartbreaking. There was a play for peace and when Ayt Madashi was not in the house an unease began to build. Fonda Lee has murdered characters abruptly, in the background or with a slow and obvious intention, but it doesn't make future ones easier to accept.

What gave me all the feels was Wen walking out of the house after Hilo's passing and stood under the same tree they were married under decades ago. The remaining chapters had me on pins and needles and still raw from Hilo's death and I could feel Anden's or Shae's emotion as they watched Niko struggle with his new responsibility and usher in a new peaceful way of clan life.

Robin Hobbs has been my gold standard on characters but Fonda Lee has to be added to that list. Thinking back to the beginning of the story and the bright, young and naive characters we were introduced to evolved, adapted and changed over their life and they were able to witness and usher in the next generation of bring and naive characters.

Jade had meaning because of the type of person one had to become to wear it. Jade was the visible proof that a person had dedicated their life to the discipline of wielding power, to the dangers and costs of being a Green Bone.

After the world building, characters and story Fonda Lee also sprinkled in heavy topics like geo-political challenges, government and police ruled states, privileged treatment of the upper class citizens that are reactive to Jade and those that are not.

A story this complex should have taken five books to develop but Fonda Lee has done something masterful and this is truly a must read series. I am thoroughly impressed that this story live up to and exceeded my expectations.

An outstanding book - better than both City and War - and the end to one of the most imaginative, refreshing and gripping series I've ever read. As someone who advocates for brevity, it's not lightly that I say I'd happily read hundreds of pages more set in this world, or another novel entirely (Fonda Lee please).

The way its many, many plot threads are handled and intertwine with one another is masterful, filling in the world and its characters and leaving no stone unturned across its expansive timeline while avoiding becoming a hard-to-follow salad of disparate threads.

It doesn't hold back on the emotional punches like its predecessors either, I had to look up from the page at several chapters' end just to contemplate the impact of what had just happened.

It's smart in many ways. When the characters' interiorities are explored they're fully justified within the novel and materialized through their actions, action scenes are described with dynamism, the complexity of the characters' actions ambitiously choreographed yet crystal clear on the page like I'm watching a great Wuxia film, the world-building is immaculate with not one location feeling like I couldn't visit it if I wanted, the references to actual history (I'm a fan of the "Three Crowns" period references throughout the book) and geopolitics are deployed to both color the world and directly influence it throughout the novel in a way that feels like the Kaul family are truly attempting to wield power in a world that's much bigger than them...

I'll miss Janloon and the Kaul family and everything about these books. Absolute gold, this novel can have all the Goodreads stars it wants.