#Review - Breath of the Dragon Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee #YA #Fantasy

Series: Breathmarked (#1)
Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Release Date: January 7, 2025
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Epic

A young warrior dreams of proving his worth in the elite Guardian Tournament, fighting not only for himself but the fate of everything he loves in the first novel in a sweeping YA fantasy duology based on characters and teachings created by Bruce Lee!

Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Heaven to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s pride—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. He believes there is no future in Jun honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breath-marked, born with a patch of dragon scales, and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place. As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the country's fate and the very survival of everyone he cares about. 

Breath of the Dragon is the first installment in authors Shannon Lee, daughter of legendary Bruce Lee, and Fonda Lee's Breathmarked series. Inspired by ancient China, this secondary-world setting draws on Bruce Lee's teachings. Ten years ago, 6-year-old Jun made a terrible, boastful mistake when he was a child, one that forced him and his father into exile, while his mother and his incredibly blessed twin went on to a life of privilege. A war and wall soon created a permanent divide between Eastern and Western Longhan. 

Jun is now sixteen, an arrogant young martial artist determined to compete in the brutal championship to become the Guardian of the realm. Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Heaven to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s pride—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. He believes there is no future in Jun honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breath-marked, born with a patch of dragon scales, and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place. Little does he know that this year's tournament is not what he was expecting.

As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life but the fate of the country and the very survival of everyone he cares about. Jun becomes aware of a rebellion against the current military leader (who controls the child emperor in the West). A fascist leader who changes the rules of the Challenges before they even begin, which sends many of the hopefuls home without a chance to fight. Jun and his former classmate Yin Yue fight for their lives with the winner likely to become the new guardian, while the losers face death. 

Jun is not breathmarked. He struggles to find a way to be important and carve out a place for himself without a special ability. In fact, every year since the East and West divided, there have been fewer breathmarked those born with a special power. Jun is irritating and definitely arrogant. Because of his arrogance, he doesn't seem to understand that everything he does has consequences. Consequences like having his twin brother excel while he and his father struggle. 

The best parts of this book were the fight scenes because I have always loved martial arts movies. I loved Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li. Heck, even Chuck Norris, David Carradine, and Jean-Claude Van Damme were good. The book ends on a stunning cliffhanger, and I hear the good news is that this is actually a duology, not a series, which means the next book should be capable of wrapping up things and giving answers to readers. 

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#Review - Any Sign of Life by Rae Carson #YA #SyFy

Series: Unknown
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: October 12, 2021
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories

New York Times–bestselling author Rae Carson delivers a harrowing and pulse-pounding survival story set in the near-future Midwest—with a cosmic twist. When a teenage girl thinks she may be the only person left alive in her town—maybe in the whole world—she must rely on hope, trust, and her own resilience. A must-have for readers of Rick Yancey’s The 5^th Wave and Neal Shusterman’s Dry.

Paige Miller is determined to take her basketball team to the state championship, maybe even beyond. But as March Madness heats up, Paige falls deathly ill. Days later, she wakes up attached to an IV and learns that the whole world has perished. Everyone she loves, and all of her dreams for the future—they’re gone.

But Paige is a warrior, so she pushes through her fear and her grief. And as she gets through each day—scrounging for food, for shelter, for safety—Paige encounters a few more young survivors. Together, they might stand a chance. But as they struggle to endure their new reality, they learn that the apocalypse did not happen by accident. And that there are worse things than being alone.

 

Rae Carson's Any Sign of Life is simply not anything special, nor should it be propped up as the next best thing in Young Adult Science Fiction, or Apocalyptic, or Dystopia. If you have read The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy or Neal Shusterman's Dry, or Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, or any number of other books in this genre, then you can pretty much guess the storyline. Paige Miller is your typical female apocalypse protagonist. She's a well off teenager who was a really good basketball player who had plans and a scholarship to look forward to when she graduates with her best friend Shawntele. 

Then one day after spending a week in a coma with what she believed was the flu, she wakes up with an IV in her arm and discovers that her entire world has been forever torn asunder by something she somehow managed to live through. Her entire family is dead and so is her best friend and everyone else that lives around her. After stumbling and bumbling and then deciding what she should do next, she manages to find Emmaline, her next door neighbors dog who has been left alone for who knows how long. Several days later, Paige runs into Trey Dawson who becomes her companion. 

Trey works at a Pharmacy as well as being a professional prospect who had just recently moved to town. Slight spoilers, Trey was immune to the virus and is curious how Paige was able to survive when 99.9% of the population is no longer left standing. The next character readers meet is a girl named Tanq who is also immune. No, I am not going to tell you her real name since it doesn't matter one way or the other. Until you meet two other characters who seem to know more than they are saying, and knew that Trey, and Tanq had survived. For them, Paige is a shocking surprise since they know of nobody who was infected but didn't die.

Tanq's personality is being angry at everyone no matter how nice they are to her and being a street artist. It takes Paige and Trey too much time to convince her that she's better off with them, than alone. The three soon meet two other survivors in Manny and Wyatt who know pretty much everything about what happened and who is to blame for the Earth being nearly wiped out. There has never once in human history been a virus has completely wiped out humanity. Was the virus engineered in a lab? Who was stupid enough to release the virus?

For me, whenever an author puts her personal political views into a story, I immediately reduce the rating and will continue to do so. The author believes that it is perfectly okay to call out certain characters for being racists when they're not. The author believes that if a white girl likes a black guy, they are, well, racist and guilty of white supremacy. Her exact words are white women who fetishize about black guys is racism. Allegedly, her so called best friend told her this. It is also apparent that the author wanted to jump in feet first on the Covid bandwagon, as well as blaming white people for everything that has ever happened.

The book ends on a cliffhanger but I don't feel the need to continue to punish myself by having different opinions from this author. 

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