Zen Cho

“Fantastic, defiant, utterly brilliant.” —Ken Liu Zen Cho returns with The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history. A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

Maria

3.5

i enjoyed this immensely, but i think i would have enjoyed it even more had it been longer, which would have allowed for more fleshing out of both the characters and their outcast found family situation, as well as the setting. that being said, i think the author has a way of enrapturing the reader both in the story and in the characters (at least the main trio) in a short time span.
i think the beautiful cover also deserves its own praise, it’s just so gorgeous!

altlovesbooks

Like a lot of people here, I was absolutely drawn in by the gorgeous cover. Let's just take a minute to admire it before I continue.

I'm not a stranger to the wuxia genre, and I was looking forward to more over-the-top wuxia fun based on the blurb. What I got instead was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Instead of kung fu moves and long, drawn out, bombastic fight dialog, we get a surprisingly quiet and thoughtful story about motives, relationships, theology, and what makes a family. 

The plot brings the relevant characters together quickly. We meet a host of side characters that are never fully fleshed out but provide some amusing fireside moments and some conflict, and there's enough unexpected moments to keep my interest. The author even incorporates some LGBT themes in a thoughtful way, which is unexpected for the wuxia genre.

Other than the side characters not being fleshed out well, I also felt that the book was light on details in general. Descriptions are brief, jargon is used but requires context to understand, and some of the character developments take place more rapidly than maybe is believable. It is a novella, however, so I found it easy to overlook.

In short, this was a fun, quick read that I enjoyed for reasons I wasn't expecting when I started it. I won't spoil the ending, but I found it both touching and satisfying. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this novella in exchange for an honest review.

Samantha Cummings

“Fantastic, defiant, utterly brilliant.” —Ken Liu Zen Cho returns with a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history. A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined.

Brittany Jenkins

I’m not sure how to describe this book, and I’m not sure if I could tell you exactly what happened, but somehow I really liked it? And listening to the audiobook along with it was wonderful, I thoroughly enjoyed Nancy Wu’s narration.

Stef

tina

this was a fun and lighthearted read! i love guet imm and tet sang so much! also yay for ftm rep !!!

juno

3.5 stars. An enjoyable read though slightly underwhelming, and I did not grow attached to any of the characters.

Lia Yuliana

Entertaining and witty. Will write mini review soon!

Caterina Di Maddalena

I was debating between a three star or a four star rating because I truly did love the story and I thought the characterization was extremely well done especially for such a short book BUT it wasn't enough, there's much more of this story that needs to be told and I think this would've served better as a full fledged novel as opposed to a novella.

mighty dragon 

elif sinem

some novellas should really just be novels instead

This. Was. Great! It's fast, it's queer, and it feels like a wacky Chinese movie from the 70s. Oh, and it's exceptionally queer. The books so short that I'll probably spoil it just describing the flavors of queer. Get it from your library. Devour it. Then buy it for your shelf. You might thank me. 

Sahi K

It’s more of a solid 3.5. 

To tell the truth, I’ve not read any of the author’s previous novels nor have I ever felt interested to. But this novella instantly captured my interest with that gorgeous cover, and maybe that’s me being vain, but I was captivated and the premise also sounded quite promising. So I was very happy when I got the ARC and even more when I picked to read it on the first day of Asian Heritage month. 

I have to admit I felt slightly misguided by the blurb. I’m a huge fan of martial arts movies, so I went into this book expecting a lot of fun action sequences but I was disappointed because it isn’t that kind of a story. It was much more of a found family type situation, with lots of humorous banter and a perilous journey for survival. I won’t say I got bored, but the plot did feel mundane at times; but I was much more fascinated when the discussions turned towards the effects of war and its collateral damage, the innocent lives lost, the loss of faith amounting from such experiences and how it changes a person. I also loved that despite the world building not being the strong suit here(probably because it’s such a small book), it’s very queernormative. 

It’s an eclectic group of characters but we only get to know two of them very well. I don’t want to talk details and give away spoilers, but they were all on a spectrum from naïveté to shrewdness, patient to temperamental, and it was fun reading their conversations. But I also found it interesting that the author didn’t shy away from showing us that survival came first to these characters, and even their bond might strain if circumstances go unfavorable. 

In the end, I had fun reading this little novella and the ending in particular was a very nice emotional touch, leaving us with just enough speculation for a possible sequel. I only wish I had gone into it with the right expectations so that I could have appreciated it more.

Jennifer

I've read Zen Cho's debut novel and I really admired the amount of research she puts into her historical fantasy settings. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is no exception - it's set in fantasy-Malaysia: the diverse cultures within the country were shown nicely in the backdrop. 

This is a novella inspired by wuxia legends and revolves around the notion of conflicts. I liked the writing style (how the characters convey about human nature and conflicts) and the way the diverse cultural backdrop was woven into the story. For the brevity of a novella, it's not an easy task to establish a backdrop so I found this aspect quite well done. 

On the flipside, the length of the novella also means that there are aspects of the character development and the worldbuilding which felt incomplete. While I enjoyed the plot twists in this novella, I felt like the characters could have been better fleshed out if this is a full length novel. Similarly the cultural backdrop brings a lot of unrealised potentials so if there are more pages, the worldbuilding and the magic system would have been moore solid. So my main concerns with The Order of the Pure Moon are directly tied to the length of the novella.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting and beautifully written short story inspired by wuxia and historical conflicts in Malaysia.

Leonie

Do you ever read a book and don’t know wether you liked it or not after finishing it? Because that’s me with The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water (what a brilliant title, btw).
I’d like a more in-depth version of the story because I think I would’ve enjoyed the book way more had it been longer.

Cindy

As a novella, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is an easy and elegant read. I only got faint "found family" vibes from this (sad, considering found family is one of my favorite tropes!), but I think that's more of the fault of the medium, since I felt like almost all of Guet's bonds with the bandits were tenuous at best. Ultimately, I felt like I was reading an excerpt of a much longer novel. Or even a written adaptation of a movie!

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

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