#Zhara

[aroaessidhe]

2023 ACE & ARO books - part 4

STRANGE BLOOD (sequel) - Feb 14 - demisexual MC

THE MEISTER OF DECIMEN CITY - March 7 - ace MC

FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS - March 21 - ace MC, aro & ace side characters

KILL YOUR DARLINGS - May 24 - ace major character

BY YOUR SIDE - June 6 - aro major character, QPR

ZHARA - August 1 - ace love interest

THE SIREN, THE SONG AND THE SPY - Sep 26 - aroace MCs

THE TALE THAT TWINES - September - ace & aro spectrum MCs

GODLY HEATHENS - Nov 28 - demiromantic MC

part 1 / part 2  / part 3

[i9daey]

(｡•̀ᴗ-) ✧ 🧇 ˚　❤︎　

[fefuckability]

Qualifier 7: Fates

Feel free to rb/comment with your justifications!

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Zhara | Author: S. Jae-Jones | Publisher: Wednesday Books (2023)

[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

[readinginmars]

"Because for the longest time I did not know I could dream," she said. "That I could wish - want - for things beyond what I needed. A roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food in my belly."

Guardians of Dawn: Zhara - S. Jae-Jones

[yamsgarden]

Omg forgot to share that I finally got my hands on the beautiful Indivisible art book earlier this year 💖✨️💖✨️ Just wish it was bigger heehee

[elliepassmore]

Zhara review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, multiple POVs, secret groups, humor Big thanks to Netgalley, Wednesday Books, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! While there are two POVs in this book, it's really Zhara's story. She undergoes a lot of development throughout this book and comes out stronger, and more herself, on the other side. At the same time, Han does play a major role in the story and has some of his own growth, it's just at a milder scale than Zhara. It's clear from the beginning that Zhara loves her sister and would do pretty much anything for her, even if it means dealing with her stepmother. That loyalty and sense of protection also carries through to some of the other people, particularly the kids, that Zhara comes across that are in need of help. She's also smart and fairly resourceful, despite her not thinking much of herself at times. Han is definitely a himbo. He works out a lot and prizes being in physical shape but is often one of, if not the last, person to put things together. Like Zhara, Han is also desperate to try and save his younger brother, though from a very different threat. He is fairly innocent (and as the synopsis says, easily flustered), which the other characters tease him mercilessly about, and makes him a fun character to read. Xu is Han's best friend and might be one of my favorite characters. I love how upbeat they are and yet at the same time they have their moments when they can be more serious. I also feel like Xu has a very strong sense of identity. They don't get a POV, but they have a lot of character to them that I enjoyed and I think it would be fun if we do get their POV at some point. I also really treasure their friendships with Han, Zhara, and Jiyi. Jiyi comes into the story a bit later and is endearing for different reasons. She's fairly straightforward about things, to the point of coming across as gruff, but it's clear that she's very knowledgeable about her field of study (and very accomplished) and that she cares about what happens if the worst were to come to pass. Yulana is also a late-comer in the story, but I absolutely love her. She's got somewhat of a mysterious vibe when she's first introduced, and things stay like that for a bit, but she's actually a pretty open person once we get past that. Like with Xu, I hope we get her POV at some point, and I suspect she's a more likely candidate for that than Xu is, lol. This book does a good job of including some lighter and more humorous moments amid the more high drama/stakes scenes. At times it did feel a but juvenile, but overall I think the effect worked. The funny moments allowed for relationships to develop between the characters and so we as readers cared when those relationships were put to the test or were in jeopardy. On the surface, magic is banned because magicians turn into abominations, but of course things are never so simple. Learning about the magic system and how things had gotten bad was interesting. The linguistic element of magic was definitely something that I enjoyed. There's a whole history and culture that's been driven underground or erased because of the abominations, but so few people know the truth of what happened, and what happened is very different from what people think it is. Of course there are allegories a plenty here, and a lot of aspects of the magical purge can be related to history or current events in our world in a way that's written very neatly without being overbearing. Overall, I enjoyed this book and that the high stakes were interspersed with lighter moments. I look forward to seeing the characters in the future books and am definitely hoping for more page time from Xu and Yulana in particular.

[theaologieslibrary]

I’m OBSESSED with the edges on the Illumicrate edition of Zhara!!

[bookishlyvintage]

Guardians of the Dawn: Zhara, S Jae Jones [thoughts]

[i9daey]

🍑　　ᐢ˚/ᐠ• ༝ •ᐟ\ﾉ ₊ 500 ᵎ

Tysm for 500 followers! We are already halfway thru 1k omg. We will keep on making moodboards for all of u guys that follow us. We all appreciate this milestone sm. We are growing fast with the help of u guys. Jinnie, zhara, cher, ky are very grateful!! We love u all so so so much. You guys inspire us to make more and more moodboards, ty all sm once again and i hope we will all grow more and more everyday. I will list our fav blogs now! (Keep in mind that they arent in order, and if we forgot any of u guys then we apologize!)

Kylie:

@umiena, @baesol, @iluvrei, @chaey2k, @yeritos, @sseulr1n, @gwryus, @y-unjins

Cher:

@8ulli, @eunaray, @umiena, @wonicha, @cyutic, @y-ujin, @baesol, @yeritos, @wonsa, @mazeui, @velvtyy, @s-heon, @wintys, @y2qi, @fuckici, @w-oun, @y-urios

Zhara:

@yeritos, @y-ujin, @y-unjins, @cyutic, @gwryus, @ahinsite

Jinnie:

@iluvrei, @yeritos, @baesol, @fuckici, @cyutic, @y-ujin, @umiena, @ahinsite, @chaey2k

[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.

[ikuneko]

"Being ashamed of an accident or a quirk of birth is as silly as it is futile. This is who you are. There is no shame in it." -Zhara

[read-with-el]

Guardians of Dawn: Zhara: 3/5 stars

This was overall very sweet! It has a cinderella-type story, with secret magic and societies. The two main characters Zhara and Han are initially drawn together by accident but they later realize they have some secrets in common. I initially was reading an ebook copy but was struggling to get drawn in so I switched to the audiobook. I personally found this experience better (I probably would have dnf’d it if not for this).

I enjoyed the world building and the magic system (and the history behind it). Ultimately I felt the book fell a little short. Zhara and Han both felt a little one-note and jokes about their personalities were used over and over again and each of them came off as younger than their stated ages to me. I think my favorite character ended up being the cat (in all fairness—the cat is definitely more than “just there”; it plays a role). I think this had a great set-up, but just wasn’t there in the execution. Unsure of whether or not I will continue the series.

[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.