Celestial Tiger
Book Reviews for Celestial Banquet & The Last Tiger
Celestial Banquet by Roselle Lim
Pitched as THE book for fans of The Hunger Games and cooking competitions, Celestial Banquet is Roselle Lim’s foray into the YA fantasy genre. As someone who has enjoyed Roselle’s women’s fiction books, I was curious to see how she would approach YA fantasy. Set in a world inspired by the mythology and history of both East and Southeast Asia, readers follow Cai, a young noodle chef who enters the “Celestial Banquet,” a deadly, cutthroat cooking contest held by the major gods as a way to escape her impoverished life. Lim, as always, delivers on mouthwatering descriptions of food with Celestial Banquet, and from the start it’s obvious just how much care and effort were put into the world-building. I also appreciated how each chapter begins with an excerpt from a scroll that expands upon the world that Lim has so lovingly created. Unfortunately, Celestial Banquet suffers from the all-too-common issue of having a compelling concept—its intriguing premise—but lacking in execution. I openly acknowledge that love triangles are one of my least preferred tropes, however the one featured in Celestial Banquet was not only unnecessary but also poorly handled. Not only did both of Cai's options suck, but any time spent on the juvenile “romance” took away from time that could have been spent on further developing the backstories of Cai and the rest of Team Kama as well as fleshing out the motivations of the other teams and even the gods who were the hosts of this deadly competition. That said, I did find it refreshingly relatable how petty the gods were and how they were overly invested in Cai’s relationship drama, to the point where they would openly mess with her and the guys just for their own entertainment. Celestial Banquet does its reader a solid by not ending on a major cliffhanger as it wraps up the main story while simultaneously setting things up for the sequel. However, the ending felt like it came out of nowhere and was rushed, and I’m just not emotionally invested enough to continue with this series.
Read If You Liked: The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker
The Last Tiger by Julia Riew & Brad Riew
Real-life brother and sister Julia and Brad Riew have come together as a writing duo to reimagine the real-life love story of their grandparents into a historical YA fantasy novel with a dash of magic. As soon as I heard about the inspiration behind The Last Tiger, I felt intrigued, and the many TikToks only made me more excited for it. While the prose was easy to read and the short chapters were appreciated, this book ultimately fell flat for me. Especially when the truth hinted at in the actual correspondences from their grandparents at the start of each chapter was interesting enough on its own. Ultimately, it feels like the writers were trying to do too much with their book, leading to confusion about the story they truly wished to convey. This is unfortunate, as the premise could have been a compelling one if they focused on one aspect of the story; instead, by choosing to incorporate so many different elements into one book, everything from the characters to the romance to even the world-building felt underdeveloped. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the ending felt somewhat rushed, as if the writers were keen to wrap up everything quickly, which was inconsistent with the book's pacing. All in all, despite the promising potential, The Last Tiger, while not a terrible read, failed to live up to the hype.
Read If You Liked: Guardians of Dawn: Zhara by S. Jae-Jones
Early copies of these titles were generously provided to me by the publisher for review. However, the above reviews consists of my honest opinion of the books and my opinion only.
