Song of the Six Realms Review

I have this newly discovered penchant for reading Asian mythical fantasy novels with really pretty covers and Song of the Six Realms was the newest addition!

Xue is a talented musician on the qin. She is also currently indentured to the House of the Flowing Water. She dreams of one day accompanying her uncle - her only remaining family - on his travels. That all comes to a stop when she is devastated to find out about her uncle's death. With no choice but to resign her dreams, she pours everything into her playing. All this changes when a visiting lord comes and, enchanted by her playing, offers her a deal: he'll buy her indenture and she'll come to his manor and play for a year, and then she'll be free. Some things are too good to be true...but somethings are worth the risk. Deciding to take the offer, she travels to the manor of Lord Meng Jinglang, or so she thinks. Yes indeed she does travel to his manor, but it's located in the Celestial Realm, and Lord Meng is no ordinary lord, instead he's the Duke of Dreaming. Oh, and did I mention he's a Celestial? She might just be a lowly mortal to almost all Celestials, but to Jinglang, she's the key to solving a mystery, one that might have been the reason behind her uncle's death. The two of them race to find the answers, before it's too late... (Oh, and maybe grow closer as they do)

Song of the Six Realms was really engaging and I finished it all in primarily one sitting (which is not as common as I'd like anymore). I especially loved how it was focused around music and arts, yet there was this drama around trying to solve the mystery behind her father's death.

The romance between Xue and Jinglang was really sweet, and I liked them as a couple, I just wished there was more of them romantically together, especially since the cover advertised a lot more romance than the book actually delivered on. Yes, there was romance, but I didn't get to see as much of it as I would have liked. Also, Jinglang could be really sweet and protective, and sort of chivalrous, but at the same time, it felt a little wrong that he whisked her away to the Celestial realm and lied to her about what was going on. I didn't really know how to feel about that.

While the book was rather engaging, there were a lot of information dumps on the reader, and at times it could be too much. I sometimes found myself skimming some of the detail overload, something I neither like to do nor can say I'm proud of, but I felt like the details didn't add, and in fact took away from the main plot. I was so wrapped up in reading the main storyline, that the complexities, after a point, almost got in the way. Also, there was a lot of drama and action and mixing of storylines from different time periods, all cramped into one book. I felt like it could've been split between two books, and then maybe more time could have been spent focusing on Xue and Jinglang together!

The ending...ah I'm still not sure how my core happily ever after self is doing. It was emotional and bittersweet and fitting, yet that doesn't stop me from wanting more closure and happiness. (This is mainly for Xue and Jinglang's ending) And then for the overall ending, I just felt like not everything was resolved as well, or explained as well I should say, as it could have been. And the entire action and resolution was cramped into not that many pages, so it also didn't have time to have been drawn out and explained more as the rest of the book had been.

So overall, Song of the Six Realms was a nice mythical fantasy read with lots of arts and music, an engaging plot, and likeable characters!

My Review of Song of the Six Realms

Rating: 3.5/5

Review Updated: 5/26/2024