Review: Song of the Crimson Flower

Song of the Crimson Flower 
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Borrow 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Will love break the spell? After cruelly rejecting Bao, the poor physician's apprentice who loves her, Lan, a wealthy nobleman's daughter, regrets her actions. So when she finds Bao's prized flute floating in his boat near her house, she takes it into her care, not knowing that his soul has been trapped inside it by an evil witch, who cursed Bao, telling him that only love will set him free. Though Bao now despises her, Lan vows to make amends and help break the spell.

Together, the two travel across the continent, finding themselves in the presence of greatness in the forms of the Great Forest's Empress Jade and Commander Wei. They journey with Wei, getting tangled in the webs of war, blood magic, and romance along the way. Will Lan and Bao begin to break the spell that's been placed upon them? Or will they be doomed to live out their lives with black magic running through their veins? 

I was a little bit wary of this book, as I'd read Forest of a Thousand Lanterns and I really didn't get on well with it. It had aspects that I did like, but for the most part I wasn't a fan of it and didn't bother to read the sequel. However, I was intrigued by the synopsis for Song of the Crimson Flower and was willing to give Dao's writing a chance one more time. 

There are some references to the duology and events that happened in it that you may or may not consider a spoiler. I for one, knew what direction the duology was going to take so I didn't consider anything in Song of the Crimson Flower to be a spoiler, it was more confirmation of what I'd thought was going to happen. There's enough information about what happened in the duology scattered throughout that you can understand what happened and you can see the connections between the books, especially when we meet characters from the duology. 

It was quite easy to sink in to the world of the book thanks to the descriptions but I'd have liked more from the world building. A bit more richness and depth, I know it's technically part of the series but seeing as we were visiting what I believe to be different places to the other two books, some more world building would have been great. The mysterious blood pox and its cause were easy to figure out from early on as well, it was fairly obvious what was behind it and which direction the story was going to go. 

There is a really great fairy tale-like quality to the writing and the story which I did enjoy throughout the book and the writing is quite simple which makes it an easy to read book. I whizzed through this in a couple of sittings though I wasn't particularly compelled to keep reading initially and it's not got all that much depth to it. It's a bit slow to start, and considering the book is around 300 pages or so, and Bao has two weeks to fix the curse, you'd think there'd be a bit more of a sense of urgency to things....but nope. I think it's around halfway through the book that they finally set off on the journey, and even then there's no sense of urgency. They're stopping here and there, getting involved with the goings on in a village and staying with other people and so on. The journey is rushed through by the time it starts, and I think it would have been better to start the journey sooner in the book than wait until halfway. 

Lan is quite sheltered and I wasn't sure I liked her at first after her outburst at Bao. But the fact that she showed genuine regret and wanted to make amends made me like her a little bit as that does take a lot of guts, however, she's quite a forgettable female lead and I found myself feeling quite neutral towards her throughout the book,  I didn't overly like her and I didn't overly dislike her. She did irritate me though, when she started going on about how Bao had 'sulked' long enough, or however she worded it, and said various other things. The thing is, Bao might have been upset and his feelings might have been hurt but he never outright hated her. The synopsis says that Bao now 'despises' her but he doesn't because the book is too short for that. The journey doesn't start until halfway through the book, what remains of the book isn't enough time for Bao to genuinely despise her and then rekindle his feelings for her without it being rushed, so he just simply decides to stop fawning over her quite so much. Honestly, Bao's not been treated the best by people, including Lan, and I did really feel for him. I understood his reaction to Lan and what she said to him, and he did the right thing and was honest so I did actually like him even if he didn't hold out against Lan all that much. 

The ending isn't a particularly strong one, it was obvious as to what was going to happen and you could see it coming because everything about this book is simple. The language, the world building, the characters and so on. I did like it more than I liked Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, I did enjoy myself reading it once things finally got going, but it's just an easy, quick read and it didn't leave much of an impression on me. I just wish Dao would go all in with her writing, and really bring in more of the world building and build up the characters some more. I think this will be the last book I read by the author because they just aren't quite enough for me.