Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor

DNF - PG 70

Why?

While I am very much not the demographic this book is aimed towards, I have been known to enjoy the odd middle grade novel. In fact, I have been looking to read more MG novels in an effort to find fun fantasy/sci-fi that doesn't have romance in it.

This book was drawn to my attention as being a diverse MG (the main character is Chinese-American and has a bit of a crush on another boy). I thought it would be right up my alley.

It's not.

So...this is like Percy Jackson, only Chinese instead of Greek (and super White) and with a hint of LGBT+ rep. Which, I do appreciate the added representation. Like, a lot. But I wasn't exactly a fan of Percy Jackson when I read it back in the day and - as attempting to watch the TV series is indicating - trying it now would likely make me want to pull my hair out.

This is witty quips and internal asides coupled with super-fast pace, no adults (save for the ghosts!) and a total and complete lack of anything even resembling character development. And the pace is breakneck. It's like so fast and everything just keeps happening without time for character development or even a chance for the MC to understand what is going on.

I'd be interested to know if it was actually well liked by kids, because to me it makes reading feel like a chore.

I haven't picked it up for five days, grabbed it today, read about five paragraphs and put it back down. So, yeah, it's gotta go back to the library in two days and I just don't care about any of it.