Thank you NetGalley and Inanna Media. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I absolutely loved the idea of this book from the blurb, but sadly it was hard to get through. Abalone is mute and has amnesia, and it takes you a while to figure that out. It makes the first half of the book very confusing, because we don't have the worldbuilding to explain things that are happening. I was completely lost, and it felt like part of it was flashbacks, but it wasn't clear at all. It felt like we were drifting through fog while grasping for bits of plot.

I thought she was a young woman for quite a while, until it started talking about her having children in the past. Her mindset, and reactions make her feel like she is a pre-teen or a child.

The first half is incredibly slow, but it does pick up a lot in the second half. I did enjoy the folklore, and learning about the social aspects as well.

*I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

The concept of this book really intrigued me: I love books that blend fantasy with mythology, and there was a lot of that here. We follow Abalone, the daughter of a great mage, who is now mute and married to the Elder Master. She doesn’t feel that he wants her, so she sets out to weave a spell with the help of the Snake Goddess to make her husband want her again.

The positives first: the use of mythology was great, and the commentary on racism and bigotry was really well done. I enjoyed the back half of the book a lot more, where we get to really delve into the consequences of the spell Abalone has cast, and the truth of her past.

Unfortunately, therein lies my biggest issue. I felt that everything that happened in the last half could have - and maybe should have - been brought forward much earlier. The plot really doesn’t kick off until over halfway through, and it made it hard to want to keep reading.

I think the writing was broadly pretty good, and a lot of the secondary characters were fairly well-formed. However, our main character felt disjointed and I felt disconnected from her, despite this being in first person narrative. I understand that she seems to be suffering from some sort of amnesia, but I still felt a real difficulty understanding some of her motivations. I also had to keep reminding myself that she is most definitely an adult, when she honestly comes across as a teenager a lot of the time, which is the jarring when certain things are revealed.

Overall, I don’t think this was objectively terrible, but I do think it would benefit from some restructuring and a little more editing, particularly the first half.

I have to dnf this. I can't really get into the story and i don’t really understand what's going on here. I'm sad because when i heard that it was a Chinese mythology, i wanted to read it right away, but as it turns out, it's just not for me.

Abalone and the Snake Goddess is an entry into the growing sub-genre of fantasy based on mythology, and on that front, it performs well, mixing Chinese mythology into a fantasy novel set in pseudo-historical China. However, I found the story to be somewhat disjointed and hard to follow; I did feel that it got better as the book progressed. A large part of the plotline is based on the main character's inability to speak aloud, but that inability was unclear in the beginning of the novel, which caused some confusion. Plot points that were brought in early during the novel faded out without resolution, which made the overall plot difficult to discern; likewise, some later plot points were not well-supported at the beginning of the story, so seemed to appear out of nowhere. It's not a bad story, but it would benefit from an editor's review.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book provided by Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I feel awful but I could not finish this. I was just so lost in what was going on.. I thought it would be a very interesting read. I loved the idea of the story line. I just didn't grasp a thing. I am sure there is an audience out there that this is great for, but it was not my cup of tea.

I don’t usually read fantasy novels but this one sounded interesting due to the Chinese mythology. I DNFed at around 30% as I was struggling to follow what was going on. Our heroine, Abalone, seems to have amnesia so she’s confused by reality. As she’s the narrator of the story, this in turn led me, as the reader, to be rather confused as to who she was, whether she was human or another creature, and generally what was happening. It took me a while to realise that Abalone couldn’t speak. There’s definitely a good story here but I just wonder whether another round of edits might bring it to full fruition. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

this definitely wasn't for me but i do think there is an audience for it. this weaves chinese mythology, folklore, and history - i loved that aspect. i also think the author did a great job of building the atmosphere and the world of ancient china. however, for my own personal taste, i felt like the pacing of the story was too slow and the writing was a bit dense which made it hard to keep up with.

“Abalone and the Snake Goddess” is by Christine Li. I will say that I’m not the audience for this book, but the summary sounded very interesting so I thought I’d give it a try. Ms. Li does a good job weaving the magical/fantasy and Chinese folklore together. I found myself mixing up a few of the characters, but that’s probably more on me, not the author. I think if you’re one who enjoys folklore mixed with fantasy, this book could be more to your liking. A generous four stars for me because while the book didn’t work for me, I can see others really enjoying it.

Abalone and the Snake Goddess is such a good book. I wasn't expecting it to be so perfect! I rated it 5 stars because I loved the experience of reading it.