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Fantasy Book Review: Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Recently I read Sue Lynn Tann's The Daughter of the Moon Goddess (2022).  After seeing this book raging across twitter, I never expected to find it just sitting on the library shelves without a single hold on it. I rushed home with it, eager to find out what the hype was about. 

I feel uncomfortable admitting it, but I'm not sure what the interest was raving about. This was an enjoyable book, once I could get myself past the extremely passive voice and the blocks of exposition. The character was engaging, when I could ignore how despite the depth of the challenges, everything always seemed to come out right in the end with minimal angst on the reader's part. 

Maybe this book is evidence of what Salesses discussed in Craft in the Real World: that after years of having writing rules hammered in to me, my view of what counts as "good writing" is one very specific style. Or maybe this is more evidence that I need to take a break from reading--I powered through this during the period when I struggled to focus when reading by holding myself to reading 3 chapters each day. I think there is definitely merit to the idea that I spent March way too in the weeds of editing and critiquing, and am just now starting to pull myself back out of an overly-critical hole. 

This wasn't a bad book, and by the last 100 pages I was definitely invested in the ending. I think my experience of this book just shows how much a reader's perception of a book can be influenced by their life. Reading can't always be an escape, even when we wish it would wipe out the worries of the day. 

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