strike the zither, by joan he

i received a copy of strike the zither from text publishing in exchange for an honest review.

star rating

★★

strike the zither review

strike the zither is a unique retelling of three kingdoms. admittedly, i knew nothing about it prior to picking this book up. i’ve been devouring a lot of asian inspired fantasy lately, and this is one of the many on my tbr.

unfortunately, i didn’t have the best reading experience with this book. i found it confusing as hell. strike the zither is extremely fast paced – to the point where you can’t follow along as you’re so lost. normally, i love a fast paced novel, but this was a bit too much.

due to the fast paced nature of the book, i struggled with remembering who was who and their importance to the story. (luckily, there was a section at the front of the book with some character art and character names). while the characters were hard to keep track of, i found it really difficult to learn about the history and worldbuilding. nothing absorbed well for me.

because of all of that, i felt rather detached from the story. like, yes all these battles and cool things were happening but i didn’t care what happened. i lacked the connection i usually have to characters in order to sympathize with them.

that being said, there was a lot of cool fight scenes and action. there was a plot twist in the middle that completely blew my mind (it was that unexpected!).

while my thoughts aren’t particularly favorable on this book, i still think it’s worth the read. who knows – you might enjoy it more than me! i definitely would have if i’d slowed down my reading a bit and taken the time to absorb everything properly.

buy your copy now!

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