Week 33 Review: The Water Outlaws

From Goodreads:

Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart.

In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.

Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job.

Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away.

Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats.

Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.

My Review:
I had a really fantastic time reading this book! At points I was so very infuriated, at the way that women were treated, but this book is about fighting back, so that was really fantastic to read! That this starts off with a sexual assault by the guy that she reports to, and when she defends herself, he uses his power to get her arrested, argh, it was so aggravating! 

I had this book as an audio arc, and I had a dilemma. For most of the text, I could listen in on 3.0 speed. But on the names? Yeah, I had a tough time hearing those clearly enough. So I could either listen to the whole thing slower to know which character was which, or listen to it all quicker, but be in a state of confusion. Which is a me problem, because while my hearing leading to understanding of what I head has much improved, this is one area where I'm still shaky. 

On one hand, i loved the bandits, that it's a group of outcasts, mainly women, looking for justice that the can't and won't receive from the Empire because of corruption. But the fact aht when Lin Chong joins, she's met with a lot of the same attitudes as what was at court...that's not great.

A decent part of this book is dedicated to the remnants of god powers. Because there's some specific rules on passing them down, which combined with their rarity, well, it's become a mission to make some of their own, and I loved seeing that storyline progress with the one of the bandits, as things got more intense and came together! And oh, that ending was so good! 

Loved reading this book, this was absolutely an incredible read! 

Author: S.L. Huang
Read: August 17th, 2023
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a 2023 Retelling Reading Challenge Book, Historical Fiction 2023 Book and a SAC 2023 Book! 
Publisher: Dreamscape Media 
Published: August 22nd 2023

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars