 Oh my God, I can't believe they did that. Whether you like, you'll always another matter. I'm sorry, I'm a terrible reading buddy, but oh, I'm gonna finish this today. This is now my entire personality. So I cannot put it down. I cannot tell you how excited I am and how relieved I am to be filming this video today. Today, I will be talking about why I adore Jade City by fondly. This book is so, so, so, so hyped. The series is so, so, so, so hyped and I went into it expecting to once again be the villain and disappoint everybody by hating a incredibly beloved and hyped series. When I was halfway through this book and realized that I'm obsessed with it and ordered the Illumicant Editions when I was like not even halfway through, I was, I mean, overjoyed but also relieved. So Jade City, what is Jade City? If you have somehow not heard of Jade City, which I feel like is no one because everyone and their mother has already read it. It's just me that hadn't yet. Jade City is an urban fantasy, technically speaking. Although when I talked about it with Mara, it had not occurred to me to refer to it as an urban fantasy, even though it is absolutely not urban fantasy. But when you think of urban fantasy, there's a lot of sort of like story types and tropes that go along with that and this is not at all interested in doing that. So for Mara, when she was reading and she was sort of expecting sort of urban fantasy things like things that go with urban fantasy to be there and they were not. So there was sort of an adjustment for her. For me, I was like, oh, such a cool innovative, unique idea to tell a fantasy story, but instead of sending it in a medieval Europe environment or even medieval Asian environment, the idea of sending it in a city type environment with technology like what an unusual, never foreseen concept, except like, I mean, urban fantasy, it exists. And that's clearly sort of not fond of Lee's area of interest or inspiration. Like it's not urban fantasy that has inspired her. It is the idea of telling a story that is inspired by real world cultures and peoples, but also taking inspiration from mafia stories, taking inspiration from martial arts films and sort of mushing them all together into this quite modern setting that is also magical. So reading it, I was mostly reminded of Peaky Blinders, which is a show that I adore. And maybe, you know, Sons of Anarchy, things like that. It is taking place in a magical modern Asia, not in Birmingham. And I do really like the fact that fondly chose to sort of make this an amalgam, a pastiche mixing together fusion of various influences. So it doesn't read as like the magical version of any particular people, culture, place, history, tradition, et cetera. It is a blending of all these different inspirations, be they different Asian cultures, Asian places, Asian languages, the Asian diaspora in the West, all of it mixing together into its own thing. Which is more sort of like what you find in very Western and European inspired fantasy where it doesn't read like, oh, okay, this is magical Germany. I mean, sometimes it does if it's intentionally trying to do that. For the most part, Western fantasy isn't trying to be like, oh, this is magical Spain. Oh, this is magical Germany. Oh, this is magical France. It's just, oh, this is magical European inspired something or other. Similarly, this is magical Asian inspired something or other, where it is such a blending of things that it becomes its own thing, which I very much appreciate. Did I think this book was perfect? No, I didn't think it was perfect. For example, the magic system, which is to do with Jade, I found it, at least I have not read the second or third books yet. I fully intend to, and I would much prefer to be doing that instead of reading what you are. But the way Jade works didn't quite, not that it didn't make sense to me to understand how it works in the world. It doesn't make sense to me how she would choose to make Jade a resource that does not have to be renewed if that makes sense. So, or if it only makes sense if you read it. So the way Jade works is that the having of Jade, it gives you powers, it heightens your senses, et cetera. But it is not something that runs out. It's not like you can use up Jade. You just, the having of it in perpetuity, indefinitely heightens your senses, makes you stronger, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not like you have to keep re-upping your supply of Jade. It's not like, for example, in Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, the magic system is to do with ingesting metals. And it's not like the people who are able to do magical things by ingesting metals, it's not like you ingest the metal once and now you have that metal and now you can just do magic forever. You have to keep ingesting that metal because if you do magic with it, you use it up. So you have to get more. And in Jade City, the gangs control the Jade supply and are also Jade users, which is unusual in this world. Not everyone can be a Jade user. So they have an interest in controlling access to Jade. But once you have Jade, you're good to go. Like getting more Jade makes you more powerful and heightens your senses even more. But it's not like you have Jade, you used it a whole bunch and now you need more. You can just keep using the Jade that you have. You don't need more unless you want to level up. But you don't need to replace it unless it got stolen or whatever. So I would think, narratively, it would make more sense to have Jade be something that you use up. But I don't know where exactly she's gonna go with it. Obviously in books two and three. So maybe there's a reason why it's set up the way that it is. And it seems to me that gangs controlling Jade's supply that it would make sense for people to constantly need to re-up their Jade and therefore need the gangs because their only way to get Jade is from the gangs who control the supply. Not getting their first ever and only ever Jade that they'll only ever need, you know what I mean? Anyway, otherwise the way that Jade works makes perfect sense to me and works really well on the story. And I think it's handled while she does some interesting things with it so far that aside from me questioning the choice to have Jade be just like forever beneficial never use it up. Other questions about who's able to use Jade and how other people might try to become able to use Jade. And obviously again, our protagonists vested interest in preventing other people from using Jade where I like I as a human citizen of the world, I'm like, should I be pro? The controlling and gatekeeping of Jade use? Like probably not. The democratization of Jade use is probably something I should be for. But the people I'm following that I'm rooting for are gang leaders who have vested interest in keeping their monopoly on Jade. So I'm pro monopoly on Jade I guess because I'm rooting for these characters. So like that, I guess if there's a weakness like that's a weakness I suppose. And a lot of this book also sort of if you don't agree and if you don't also feel the feels that these characters feel then it will not work for you. So like I have encountered this where I'm on the opposite end where I don't feel this way where you're reading a book and like you an author clearly intends this character to be clever or to be witty or to be funny or to whatever. And so they have them say things and do things and the like it's assumed by the scene the way it's written, it's assumed by the author that you agree that this is, you know an example of how witty, how clever they are. And more often than not I'm like but that wasn't clever, that wasn't witty. So I'm unimpressed. So in Jade City there's a multiple instances where if you do not feel the feels if you are not on board with this if you are not feeling what the characters are feeling where like, I mean it's about gang violence it's heavily inspired by the Yakuza although it's not, again, it doesn't read as like oh this is just the magical Yakuza. Again, you can see that she's inspired by that but it's not a one to one. When gang warfare occurs, when there's violence there's obviously retribution and that kind of thing. And if you are not also feeling like oh no, how dare they, oh we gotta get them like screw them, like let's go to war and get them back for this. That's unacceptable. Like if you're not on board with that if you're not also feeling those feelings you'll probably like not be on board with this story because it relies upon like that's your investment in the story, right? Is if you're reading this going like, you know that you're pro the clan that you're for the no peak clan that, you know you want to see them flourish even though they are a gang and having things go badly for the no peak clan. Like if you don't also feel like, you know oh no, oh no about that. If you don't also feel like, you know if action was taken against the no peak clan if you're not right there with everybody being, you know like how dare they, we gotta get them we gotta get them back for that. Like if you don't also feel that way then you will not be on board with this and you like the drama probably won't like resonate with you. I was on board for every page. I was like, oh no, oh no and get them and like how dare they and oh my God, I can't believe they did that the entire time. So like it was definitely working for me. But yeah, like if you're not keen on a gang story and you're not gonna be able to root for a gang then great or a root for criminals or root for, you know people who resort to violence as their like first option if that's not something you're gonna read about and care about then it's not gonna work for you. I do think there's some interesting things teased about the sort of larger world and the larger sort of political situation that we are building up that is going to I assume be explored and it will be developed further in the second and third books but like we're already starting to see you know there's things talked about sort of the origins of the different clans and the different faith systems there are the beliefs that people have about Jade and who has a right to control Jade who has a right to use Jade the way that drug use is incorporated is interesting and the way that that ties into Jade and yeah, I think she's doing some very interesting things that I can't wait to see how that all kind of gets developed and further explored in the second and third books. I mean the characters really, really work for me I think the character work is very strong again, you know, is one thing to agree with this behavior or to condone it or to root for it or to be able to be into a story like this but that aside, I think the character work is very good like the characters are very internally consistent like the kind of personalities that they have they continue to behave in a way that is consistent with that personality all of the time and I find them, you know equally sympathetic and frustrating like I get why they're doing why they do what they do what they feel what they feel even if there's different perspectives that disagree with each other like when I image perspective like I understand why the perspective feels the way that it does at the same time, I also understand why the person that they are against or arguing with feels the way that they do and why what they do makes sense to them and I think that's all very well done and it's a lot of family dynamics and family politics and I think that's well done where like you really get the sense of there's years and years of like compounded family baggage that necessarily informs how they're interacting with each other and their ability to sort of politic and also like run a gang but they're, you know, brother and sister and father and son and cousin and uncle and aunt and grandfather and like you are, you know, working together but you are also family and that complicates things necessarily so for example, Hilo and Shay are brother and sister and again, when you were in their perspectives why if you're in Hilo's head, right and he's pissed about something and he's pissed about what Shay is doing or irritated with her or he wishes she would behave a different way it makes sense why he feels that way and then what he does about it it makes sense for his character that that's how he would react to that situation and that's what he would do but when you're in Shay's head you totally get why she would be annoyed with Hilo and why she feels the way that she feels and why she's doing the things that annoy Hilo it's very in keeping with her character and it makes sense for her to feel this way and do the things that she's doing so I mean, all of that I just think is very, very well written where I'm reading it and like it all, you know, it checks out and even when they do things that I guess on the surface might seem out of character at the same time they aren't so like if you examine their motivations and you examine what it is that drives each of them they are always behaving in ways that are consistent with that so again, Hilo who is, you know apparently a fan favorite and he's definitely my favorite Hilo on the surface right is a very sort of violent character and he's sort of even his place within the Nopeak clan, the gang that he's in is the sort of the muscle he's the fist, he's the enforcer like that is his job so he's again, from a surface level reading of who he is he's just the guy that like shows up and immediately is like ready to fight and like yes, like he is kind of that way but that's not all he is and it's not just a situation where like oh, he's a really violent guy but you know, he's a softy on the inside which like is cliche and also doesn't really make any kind of sense for a character to be that way even though like I feel like books have a lot of that where you're like yeah, but people aren't like that Hilo, when you read about him you come to realize that he's just extremely all in about everything in his life so if he's like fully committed to violence if he's fully committed to hating you then he's all in there's no gray area for him he's never gonna be like on the fence about something if he's, you know if you're somebody that he loves then he loves you and would move heaven and earth for you if you're someone he hates then he hates you and he will move heaven and earth to hurt you and so it could be read incorrectly as like he's violent but a softy on the inside because you see him enact kind of insane violence but also be very kind to the people that he loves but that isn't at all like a contradiction in his character because his devotion to whatever he feels where he's all in on it is evident in the way he treats the people that he loves and the way that he treats the people that he hates he's all in and so I think it's really very well written that way because you could so easily make him a cliche and he's not so whether you like Hilo is another matter I like Hilo, I'm not saying you have to like it but he is consistently risen and yeah, I just really, really, really enjoy Jade City I haven't been dreaded a book because I want to since I can't even remember when the fact that I was binging a book and not because the live show for it is tonight and I really gotta finish it or because like I have 10 more books on my TBR and I need to finish it or whatever like I didn't think that I had it in me anymore to just binge a book because I feel like it because I want to, because I cannot put it down and then there I was a past midnight reading Jade City and messing Mar and being like I'm sorry, I'm a terrible reading buddy but I'm gonna finish this tonight so I cannot put it down the writing itself, you know it is not the most beautiful thing I've ever read it is not, you know like Ratha Serlaini Taylor and like beautiful purple prose it is not super artful and clever the way that, you know, Abercrombie or Terry Pratchett or more Scott Lynch like it's not, you know, filled with like artful witticisms that are quotable quotes or anything like that but the writing is also I think more than the sort of windowpane prose that Brandon Sanderson for example is known for and himself, that's how he describes his writing I do think there is more beauty and subtlety and nuance and art to the writing than that but it is not like the prose itself is not like the standout of Jade City it's not like you read this and go like oh, this, you know, is a feast of words like it's not that but I do think the prose is quite good and she uses non-flust correctly multiple times which is apparently a very high bar so anyway, Jade City, 10 out of 10, 5 out of 5 whatever numeric scale, I love it is it perfect? No, I already identified that Jade not making complete sense to me why she would choose to do it that way the prose is not like amazing but otherwise, I mean, I can't really think of any other flaws it's more just like I don't think this would be for everybody I get why people wouldn't like this if you don't like gang stories if you don't like mafia stories if you don't like reading about criminals if you don't like reading about extremely morally gray characters doing morally gray things of like that's not your jam I am Jack's complete lack of surprise that you don't like this book but that is my jam, I love it so I think it is doing the kind of story and the kind of thing that I am already predisposed to view favorably and then she's executing it in innovative, creative, unique ways with the world being the way that it is the magic system, et cetera, et cetera so I think she's already doing a thing that I am inclined to like and then doing it exceedingly well and in a way that is unusual and unique so this is now my entire personality I am obsessed I already said I already bought the Illumicrate editions of the Greenbone saga they are on the shelf of special editions back there there is a dearth of merch like I would love to get a sweatshirt or whatever I found one on Redbubble that just says no peek on it and another one that has like a call family like crest I guess on it that that's it though so you artists out there please make me some Greenbone merch so that I can wear it at all times add it to my rotation yeah, this is like my new favorite thing and I'm so so happy and relieved that it is let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about Jancity are you also obsessed with it are you relieved that I'm obsessed with it are you disappointed that I'm obsessed with it whatever you wanna let me know I post videos on Saturdays other random times, what would all be Saturdays so like and subscribe join my Patreon if you go so inclined and I'll see you when I see you