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2.5 stars! This review will be spoiler free!
Synopsis:
A young girl, clearly a master of her trade, has to pose as a boy to compete for imperial tailor because of the Patriarchy that believe women can never be as good as men. As her skill continues to shine, she is shoved into completing a mission she has no idea how to start. With the help of the imperial enchanter, they set off to collect the material to create the three dresses of Sun, Moon, and Stars. This story is sold as “Project Runway meet Mulan.”
Thoughts:
Spin the Dawn fell pretty much in the middle for me, but because of my overall disappointment I might say it was more 2 stars. I feel like my thoughts on this book should be split between the first half of the book which is more along the lines of what this books as being sold to be and the second half of the book which felt like an entirely different story.
Let’s talk about the first half. Maia was an amazing main character. She was courageous, independent, and skilled with a needle making her a formidable opponent in the “project runway meets Mulan” competition she was thrust into. There was a lot of conflict between Maia and some of the other opponents as well as the Enchanter (sorcerer at the emperor’s side) and that added enough mystery and suspense to the plot that without, would have left the Tailor Competition a lot more drab. The way the author describes the different sewing techniques and accomplishments of seemingly impossible tasks was filled with tons of imagery. The writing was capturing, though a little simple.
The turning point of this story that leads into the second half of the book was really good, I was on the edge of my seat worried for Maia. But then, the second half let me down. Comparatively, the first half would have been 4 stars. The second half on its own would have been 1.5 stars. And I’ll tell you why:
1) The plot/story as a whole felt entirely different that the first.
2) Maia becomes this dependent, scared, boy-infatuated girl.
3) This romance that felt like it would have been slow burn, turned into something that didn’t quite sit so well with me by the end. It didn’t feel real or believable.
4) The world grew immensely both physically and with the addition of more and more fantasy elements and it felt messy.
5) The mission Maia and the Enchanter went on had multiple parts, but story seemed to spend more time on the journey to get to the 3 places they needed to visit (and thus spent more time on developing the romance) than the actual tasks themselves WHICH
6) were wrapped up much too quickly and neatly. So you end up without the proper action-climax you expect.
The ending was also rather vague and quick and left me thinking, “do I even want to continue this series?”
Overall:
The beginning of the story was really good and I enjoyed much of the first half, but was unfortunately disappointed by the turn of events and change in the main character in the second half of the book. It’s almost as if the author spent much of her time developing the first half and then left the second half to being rushed and messy and too neat in some cases. I probably won’t continue this series. But gosh darn it, I’ll keep this book on my shelves because it’s got a gorgeous cover. 10/10 cover points.