I could not finish this one. I could barely start it. I love the premise behind this book. Mulan as a dragon-shifter?! Sign me up! But, there’s no character-building or world-building in this book. You are thrown into it so aggressively, you would think this is a sequel to another novel. But, it isn’t. There is no character descriptions, no setting descriptions, no details about the dragons, no details about the world. It is not very well written and reads more like a first or second draft than the final copy. The worst offense of this book is that it presumes too much of the reader. It expects us to know what the characters look like in human and dragon form, who Mulan’s family is, who her boyfriend Keung is, what the setting looks like, who they are at war with, etc. But, none of that has been established before, so how would we know? I wish the book had more of these details. I wanted to love it so bad, but I couldn’t get immersed into it because it lacked storytelling. I wish it had more substance to it so I could have loved it.

This is a very unique Mulan retelling. I liked all of the characters. I definitely suspected a certain character had other motives; this character seemed untrustworthy from the start. Everything was so well written. Mulan was a strong and smart character. She did get a little sidetracked by romantic issues but her first priority was always protecting her people. I would definitely recommend this!