She had lived eighteen years without falling through a mirror. Why had that suddenly changed?
The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow
LENGTH: 496 pages
GENRES: Fantasy, YA, Fiction
PUBLISHER: Delacorte Press
RELEASE DATE: 6 August 2024
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A young woman chosen as the crown prince’s bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband—but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth the royal family has been hiding for centuries—in this lush fantasy debut perfect for fans of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and Violet Made of Thorns.
Princess Ying Yue believed in love… once upon a time.
Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial palace: whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared.
Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colorful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world.
This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love—the kind of love she always dreamed of.
But there is darkness in this new world, too.
It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.
My Review
“You and me. We’re like yin and yang. Dragon and phoenix. Two halves of one whole.” He took her face in his hands, caressing her. “One of us can’t exist without the other. You are water and fire. And I’m the wood and the mountains. It’s all related that’s what the alchemy is.”
For me, The Girl With No Reflection ended up being… a bit of a disappointment. Which kind of sucks, because I was really looking forward to this one. A magical world of reflections and mythical money? Traveling between the two? A mystery? It all sounded so intriguing and exciting. And it mostly fell flat for me.
First off, I’m gonna talk about the stuff I liked. I really love the cover – I think that the cover artist and designer did a phenomenal job. It’s beautiful and very eye-catching and it did its job very well. I love all of the ribbons and little dragons and flowers and carp, and the way the mirror is shattering looks amazing.
Another thing I enjoyed was the initial setting and the way the magic system was first presented. It makes you want to read more to find out how the magic system is defined and what’s going on. Because there’s a bit of a dark mystery afoot. Honestly, I think the beginning of this novel is the best part of it. Which is unfortunate.
Because I was either indifferent to, or I disliked everything else pretty much. Which sucked, because again: I really wanted to love this book. Ugh.
“Wait.” Mei Po stopped Ying with a wrinkled, icy hand on her forearm. She gestured for her to come closer.
“Remember,” she said. Her breath was cool. “Remember who the monsters are.”
Ying and Prince Zhang were very promising characters at the beginning, I will give them that. But they either got fairly unlikeable as the story went on (Ying) or they just got boring (Zhang). The other characters didn’t really have anything interesting about them (they were either blah or angry) either – besides the Mirror Ying, Prince Prince and Mei Po, and even then Mei Po was really the only interesting one.
The romance in The Girl With No Reflection was also terrible. I absolutely hated how it was written. I’m also really tired of characters suddenly getting horny for each other at ridiculous times – like when their lives are in danger or something. In the end, I didn’t want anyone to end up with anybody. It sucked.
The plot also stops and starts with no rhyme or season, except for when the story needs it to. The main character, Ying, also had basically everything handed to her, the conflict came from her being either too stupid or too arrogant to figure something out. Which, by the way, was annoying to follow. The writing was also not the best, and the dialogue nearly always felt clunky to me. This felt like a second draft at best.
I will say this though: something this novel could’ve done to improve itself was to have more than one point of view. Ying’s just… wasn’t enough. The story would’ve been more compelling or interesting if it was a dual POV novel, with the other one being Zhang. It would’ve fleshed out the book more and probably even would’ve improved the romance – because in the novel as it is, Zhang and his feelings feel weirdly disconnected from the story sometimes.
To Ying, it was as though she finally felt it, really, truly felt it: she was the Fish, she was a dragon, and she would save her own world and all the people in it.
So yeah, that’s how I felt about The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow. It wasn’t the novel that I’d hoped it would be, unfortunately, but someone’s probably gonna like it. I think that at least a few people that like YA and fantasy and romance and don’t mind the most annoying tropea and stuff that comes with them (’cause all of the most annoying tropes are in here, trust me), then you might enjoy it. Also if you don’t mind mediocre writing and dialogue.
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day/night!
See ya ~Mar
This is actually my favourite book.
I’m glad you liked it. It just wasn’t for me.