Forest of a Thousand Lanterns Book Review

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Goodreads synopsis: An East Asian fantasy reimagining of The Evil Queen legend about one peasant girl’s quest to become Empress–and the darkness she must unleash to achieve her destiny.

Eighteen-year-old Xifeng is beautiful. The stars say she is destined for greatness, that she is meant to be Empress of Feng Lu. But only if she embraces the darkness within her. Growing up as a peasant in a forgotten village on the edge of the map, Xifeng longs to fulfill the destiny promised to her by her cruel aunt, the witch Guma, who has read the cards and seen glimmers of Xifeng’s majestic future. But is the price of the throne too high?

Because in order to achieve greatness, she must spurn the young man who loves her and exploit the callous magic that runs through her veins–sorcery fueled by eating the hearts of the recently killed. For the god who has sent her on this journey will not be satisfied until his power is absolute.

It’s about one in the morning. I’m tired, and the words and blurring across the page, but I really really need to finish this book. Part of me wishes I’d gone ahead and bought the Fairyloot villains box with this in, because I enjoyed it so much. For those of you not in the know, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns is essentially a Snow White retelling written from the POV of a girl, Xifeng, who will one day become the Evil Queen. All of the events in the book are set prior to this though, so what you get is a whole backstory into her character. At the start of the novel, she’s stuck living in poverty with her aunt Guma, who uses dark blood magic, passed down through the family, to tell Xifeng’s future through tarot cards.

I loved almost everything about this book. The settings were phenomenal, and I thought the descriptions really brought the world to life. The world was very interesting, and I liked that most of it took place in the palace, which allowed the characters to really come to life. I’m a huge fan of YA that shows political deviousness and manoeuvring [a la Game of Thrones] and this book didn’t disappoint. So much of it relies on Xifeng’s ability to manipulate other people, and to twist things to her advantage and get herself out of tricky situations. This, coupled with the way she grapples between the the good and evil in her heart, made for a delightful and devious read. I suppose I’m a bit of an idiot for not working out who her enemy [the Fool, as Guma calls them] is, but I was expecting there to be a bigger twist about that [really, when you start remembering what the book is based off, it seems glaringly obvious], and so I assumed that one of the outlying characters must have been Xifeng’s predestined enemy. I was a mixture of pleased and disappointed when I was proven wrong. It would have been quite interesting to twist another aspect of the story, but instead Dao keeps to more traditional plot points.

All in all, I found this was an excellent read, possibly one of the best I’ve picked up this year. Very quick to read through, and it was one of those that kept me up very late in the night, determined to read just one chapter more. A 9.5/10 and book two is being added to my to-buy list as soon as it is released.