Review: The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan

The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Loved the martial arts, liked the characters, not a fan of the war strategy.

Also super weird reading a rather modern, first person account of something that allegedly was taking place back in 484 AD.

But I liked it nonetheless.

One of the best things about this book, in my opinion, is Mulan's fear. She's a trained warrior, which is excellent, and she is loyal to her family, so she doesn't think twice about enlisting to save the rest of her family. Her intentions are honourable. But she wants to come home to them, so if that means hiding out on the sidelines then that's what she'll do. When she does finally see battle, there's no fancy fighting - there's just Mulan dealing with the first serious fight she's ever been involved in and her reaction is raw and real. She's terrified - as anyone would be.

It's lacking the fun of the Disney version, and there's a lot more emphasis on China politics at the time. There's no Mushu or lucky cricket sadly, and there's a serious tone to the whole thing that did unfortunately drag it down for me. But the characters to serve to lighten the mood a little - particularly Kedan, who I was quick to take a liking to.

The martial arts scenes were clearly written by an author who did her research. This was probably my favourite part of the book, reading the intricate details and the strategy of each fighter. I loved it all. Plus I really enjoyed the chemistry between Mulan and Kai when they're fighting - both with and against each other.

I have mixed feelings about it being a YA novel, because the tone seemed wrong to me - it was light on details and the language was modern, so it failed to properly immerse me in the setting of ancient China. But, at the same time, I wasn't particularly keen on all those details anyway so I'm kind of glad it skimmed over it all.

In the end, it was an easy read with some memorable moments, but nothing particularly special. I found it a little bland, but it was a decent re-telling of the legend.

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