The Night Ends with Fire

The Night Ends With Fire by K.X. Song is a Mulan retelling set in a fantasy world resembling ancient China. Meilin lives with her addicted and abusive father in relative peace, until she must marry with a man who seems to be just as abusive as her father. Meilin decides she wants freedom, wants to have choice, so she enlists in the army instead, knowing the penalty for a woman to do so is harsh. When she leaves, her stepmother gives her an amulet that belonged to her mother and that unbeknown to them contains a dragon and the dragon’s water powers. In the army she decided she doesn’t simply want to survive, she wants to thrive, and she trains more than everyone else, which is being noticed by the handsome prince who is also leading the battalion. They become friends, but war is looming and everything is changing when the other side has fire magic on its side.

I really liked this retelling. I have to say, especially the beginning and some scenes reminded me a bit too much of the Disney version, and I wished the author would have tweaked it a little more, they felt a bit boring for me to read, but about halfway the story deviates enough to be wholly new and exciting. Meilin herself is an excellent character to have in a story, as she throws herself into any situation without thinking, and her willingness to prove herself is a great help, especially when you have a dragon backing you up. She has a lot of self reflection, if it is really so greedy to want more as a woman. The story was very feministic and empowering, sometimes a bit too much but I think that’s a good thing for a younger audience.

There is some sort of a love triangle in this book, but thank goodness Meilin is a bit too busy at war to be fully emerged in this, she has priorities straight. Both boys are very intruiging though, and both quite morally grey, which is a theme within this book and I’m here for it. The other characters fell a little flat for me, like her fellow soldiers. I don’t really know what they are like, and I would have liked to see more of the friendship with her stepmother, as this book doesn’t have many female characters (later on there is one but that one is a bit ambiguous).

This book is quite fast paced, and plotwise a lot happens, but I can’t really talk about it without spoilering. I liked how expecially the second half never got boring, that one has both action and intrigue in it and lots of scenery changes and new characters, the world got a lot bigger too. The antagonist was perfect, I loved to hate him, and the resolution was epic. I was a bit disappointed in the actual ending though, it was an unexpected turn but it annoyed me more because we have a cliffhanger than that I was shocked.

All in all, I recommend this book to everyone, especially anyone who loved Mulan and who likes epic adventures with lots of feminism.

I received a free copy through Netgalley but my thoughts are my own.