#Guardians of Dawn

[jolieeason]

May 2024 Wrap-Up

Here is what I read, posted, won, received, and bought in May. Let me know if you have read any of these books and what you thought of them. Books I Read: Books I Did Not Finish I did not finish this book (which is rare for me). I had a good reason not to. The author was involved in a scandal that involved review-bombing books that were similar to her and also written by BIPOC and Queer…

[therubyreader]

I know Guardians of Dawn: Zhara is based on Sailor Moon but, this might be too niche, does it remind anyone else of that old JetX show (originally a comic book series) W.I.T.C.H.? In both the protagonists are elemental guardians of abstract concepts (dawn and the veil respectively) and it look like the Guardians of Dawn are going to be an all girl team too

[sjaejoneswriter]

Hi! This is a random question and you’ve probably heard it before, but it’s about that magical girl series you were writing, Guardians of Dawn? I’m really confused. This was a book I was really excited to read two years ago, and it never came out. Does anyone know if it was being put on hold?

With the imminent (?) death of Twitter, I decided to dust off my old Tumblr account and...wow do I have a lot of asks to go through. Mea culpa, mea culpa, I know I have been gone for literal years.

HOWEVER, yes, Guardians of Dawn is still happening—in fact, the first book will be published August 2023! You can add it to Goodreads here.

[signourneybooks]

Zhara | ARC Review

Thank you to Titan Books and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway. Book: Zhara (Guardians of Dawn 1) by S. Jae-JonesRelease Date: August 1st 2023Tags: Fantasy | Young Adult | Cinderella retelling | Family | Magic | Disabled Side CharacterTrigger/Content Warnings: Violence | GoreOther books by this author I reviewed Wintersong…

[geeklyinc]

Guardians of the Dawn: Zhara Review: Bibbity Bobbity BTS

Guardians of the Dawn: Zhara Review: Bibbity Bobbity BTS

It’s no secret that I love Sailor Moon; it’s pretty much become my personal brand around here. So when I see a book pitched as Sailor Moon meets Cinder(ella) you KNOW I’m going to be onboard. I was incredibly delighted to find that while S. Jae-Jones’ Guardians of Dawn: Zhara is a little bit of …

[luminouslumity]

Like I said, I've been waiting years for this book to come out! So whether it's good or bad, I'm just glad it's here now!

[clarkgriffon]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 6x02 | “Bargaining Pt. 2” 

[ape-apocalypse]

[kaiserouo]

this WILL become a competition among hunters

[jolieeason]

It's Monday: What Are You Reading?---May 20th, 2024

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book…

[therubyreader]

My Review of Guardians of Dawn: Zhara by S.Jae-Jones

See a full list of my book reviews here

*Disclaimer: there will be spoilers later on in the review*

Review Word Count, non-spoiler: 812 Review Word Count Total: 1,576

Hello, it is once again, I. I know it’s been a minute since I’ve written a review but I’m back with a book that I’m not seeing a huge fandom for on here despite the fact I had to wait over a month for it to come off hold in library, so I’m going to need you all to start talking about it. Is this book a little over a month old and just picking up traction, yes, but I need someone to scream about this with me so you all get to get hear me.  

In Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, we are introduced to our titular character Jin Zhara (btw this story is based on various Asian cultures and mythology, so the last name goes first), a poor orphaned girl who lives with stepmother and blind stepsister in Zanhei, one of the Morning Realms under the control of an emperor from the north who took over the area when Zhara was a child. The emperor banned the use of magic since it caused the magicians and emperor to turn into abominations over time and had all magicians, including Zhara’s father, killed. Zhara, surprise, is a magician who has to live in hiding since as soon as a magician is discovered they are immediately put to death. All she wants in life is to be able to keep her powers under control, keep her blind sister safe, and pay off her family’s debts but that all changes when she meets a mysterious boy who could possibly lead her to the Guardians of Dawn, and underground magical organization with revolutionary tendencies.  

The book is meant to be based off both Cinder by Marissa Meyer and Sailor Moon so there are elements of the Cinderella fairytale woven in through the story along with characters from various Asian mythologies which I think created a very interesting world though a bit confusing to understand at times. This also might be because I’m not familiar with any Asian mythology and only vaguely understand how east Asian monarchies worked, but there were elements of the world that took me a while to grasp. There are of course the beginning elements of a Sailor Moon-esque story since it looks like each book in the series is going to focus on a different girl and a different fairytale, but I think this story more similar to the old JetX show and comic series, W.I.T.C.H., which I was in love with as a kid and never finished the comics (whoops), but I made a post about it explaining the resemblance a little more. Honestly, I think it’s a very solid basis for a story and I’m excited to see how the author is able to build out the world more in the next book when we meet a new character.  

While the plot of the book was very interesting, the characters, I felt, were a little lacking. I can’t put my finger quite on exactly why but there were some instances where I felt like the characters’ pre-established personalities were either being disregarded or leaned on too heavily. For example, we have timid Zhara suddenly cracking sexual jokes to Han despite literally every other page she hasn’t shown signs of having that sense of humor. I think the author was trying to have a female protagonist who was timid and weak but also not too weak because “girl power”, and I’m saying this as a feminist, you can be a little bitch and also girl boss (case and point: me). I personally think we have too many stereotypically strong female protagonists, having this girl who is shy and weak and unable to use her magic would’ve been a nice change of pace and having Zhara learn to find her own strength over the course of the book would’ve been a nice addition.  

Speaking of, there were parts of the story that just moved too fast. Without giving any spoilers, we go from Zhara not being able to control her magic to just somehow doing it on command, because reasons, and it’s never explained. Or how the last chapter of the book manages to condense six weeks down into two pages, which I will talk about a bit more in the spoiler section, but I honestly didn’t appreciate it.  

Though I will say, overall, I did enjoy the book and I’m excited to see how the rest of the series goes, it’s quite unfortunate that I found out about it the week it came out so now I have to wait an entire year for the next installment. Overall, I’d give it for the girls who were into shows involving a group of girl heroes from the 90s and 00s out of ten and I recommend it if you were a fan of that genre of TV when you were a kid. 

Spoilers 

I honestly don’t even know where to start, because there is a lot. I’m just going to do a rapid fire of minor annoyances to get the ball rolling. First of all, I think that the author focused too heavily on inside references within the world, I get that having them made the world more interesting but there was a point where I was like, “cool, can we be done now?”. For example, the Bangtan Brothers, so obviously a reference to the author’s love for BTS, which was a cute and fun reference at first, but it just kept going. And them turning out to be magicians helping the Guardians to me was too far, it felt like when a joke loses its funniness the more you repeat it. Same with the constant references to “A Maiden Who Was Loved by Death”, cool, I get it started Zhara and Han’s whole relationship, but it was inserted into every conversation, and I was over it. Also, the bookseller, Master Cao, being a traitor was very out of left field and the only hint we got was Zhara hearing a familiar voice one time in an out of context conversation with her stepmother, when literally up until his big reveal he didn’t do anything shady. And I get that he was good at being secretive or whatever, but it just felt a little weird. 

Going back to the timing thing from the end of the book that I mentioned earlier, I was very annoyed with how the ending was so rushed. I get Zhara was in a coma, or equivalent, and was knocked out for two weeks but I mean give us time to process that Lord Chan was executed and then magic was made legal. Literally both of those things got like a sentence despite being monumental plot points, how is magic that was illegal because the emperor who controls the land suddenly is legal in one part of the empire suddenly and everyone is chill with it. And then they open a magic school for the region, and everyone immediately trusts it? I think this is something that should’ve been fleshed out a little more because, what?! 

And not to be a negative Norman about this whole thing, and though it doesn’t seem like it, I did genuinely enjoy the book. If this isn’t your first time seeing my blog then you’ll know I’ve been on a bit of a “fantasy books that are based on Asian mythology” kick of late, well as of this year, so this was definitely up my alley. The author combined various cultures and mythologies from across east Asia to create this complex world that was very interesting to read about and I’m more excited to explore it with the next books. I’m also a sucker for those superpower girl shows, I watched most of Sailor Moon when I was in high school (I still need to finish it, adding that to the to-do list) and my aforementioned love of W.I.T.C.H. that I also never finished, I’m really glad this genre is coming back into vogue. And I think we need more of the genre, give me more of these types of books please @/the universe! I’m also especially excited to see how the Guardians will work together as a team and how they’ll be able to combine their powers. I honestly wish we could’ve seen more of Zhara and Yulana working together and using their powers together but alas, we cannot always get what we want.  

Side note, I’m going to need someone who has a better grasp on Asian spirituality to explain to me the element of wood, I get it’s supposed to be like what we would consider earth, but like is it just for trees or the earth as a whole, someone help.  

I think the most upsetting thing about this book for me was that I’m going to have to wait a full year for the next one to come out, curse me and my ability to have found the book quite literally around the week it was published. There are so many possibilities for the rest of the series which I’m super excited about, I know the next book is going to be inspired by Beauty and the Beast, but the possibilities for the other two Guardians are endless. If you’ve read this book, please come scream about it in my inbox or just on tumblr as a whole because there is barely any content to consume and it’s upsetting to me.  

[aghostsdestiny]

It may not matter that you have company when facing the future, but it certainly helps 💙💚

[jeeaark]

do you have any screenshots of greyg ingame? it's rlly fun to see how tavs look vs. how they're drawn :o

You're in luck! Had to grab some armor refs a short time ago, so ye!

(Always wondered if anyone was curious about Greyg's actual appearance, ahaha)

So Here's Greygold in all their Grey and Gold Glory~

Have some micro-expressions of Greygold too.

Furrowed-Frowny-Face Greygold (90% their expression):

Lae'zel got drenched in blood due to fighting a few (not nice) people to get dat sweet crisp lighting for the picture (surprisingly a lot of bad lighting around here).

Pondering-Pout Greygold:

Talking-to-Lae'zel Face:

And Up Close Faces~:

[trainerjoshie]

Pokémon TCG Evolutionary Sets illustrated by the amazing nagimiso 🤩🤩🤩

[rocknroll7575]

How would you write a death for Jaune. Can be canon or in one of your au’s

I have so many ideas for Canon, but that's a way too long of a list, so how about some of my AUs

For the "Sunshine AU" If I had to Kill Jaune it be him and the main villian killing each other at the same time, with a few minutes left to say goodbye to everyone he loves.

For the "Knight of Olympus" I'd have him die in a final confrontation with Kronos, where he tells the campers that they'll win and have him be sent to Elysium to reunite with a certain person

"Guardin Ghost" would have Jaune give allowing himself to be possessed by Merlot before powering through and killing himself to save everyone.

"Rising Dawn" would have Jaune dying to Cinder right in front of Gillian's eyes.