Dear Reader,
The animated Disney movie Mulan was an interesting film. I enjoyed it but I thought the villain of that movie was one-dimensional. The book Reflection is a twisted tail version of this movie. Unlike the last three novels this is written by Elizabeth Lim. In this novel Mulan has to travel to the Chinese underworld of Diyu to save her commanding officer Li Shang.
The best part of this novel is you can see that Lim has done her research on the topic. Throughout the novel you get a clear description of Diyu and it feels like the mythical characters that are inhabiting the underworld are fully fleshed out. While reading the novel I could envision the underworld perfectly due to her brief descriptions of the place. Diyu felt more like a character than a place in this book.
While this book had chapters, it felt like the chapters were put in after the book was written. Most of the time a chapter did not end but blended into the next chapter. I had a hard time finding a good spot to put the book down. The moments where I did put the book down was because I was tired, not because it was a good spot to stop. Each time a chapter ended it was in the middle of an action. Books can have cliff-hangers, but every chapter should not end in the middle of the action.
Reflections is a great book that should be read in one sitting if you can find the time.
Matthew J. Croutch