Content Warning: violence, murder, death, misogyny, (slight) internalized homophobia, emotional abuse.
Xiang dreams of life beyond the shores of her tiny fishing village. Finally managing to convince her cold, powerful mother to take her to Canton, where she can learn to run one of the family teahouses, she's excited by the opportunity not only for more freedom, but the chance to show her mother what she's capable of. When Xiang meets a troublemaking girl named Anh, who steals the only memento Xiang has of her father, they inadvertently stumble upon something shocking: a treasure map, locked in Xiang's pendant. And not just any treasure map -- but the clues to find the fabled, notorious Dragon Fleet's legendary riches. But things are not always as they seem...
Let me admit something upfront: I've never actually read Treasure Island. I know the beats of the story, of course, but most of my familiarity with the tale comes from two other retellings -- Treasure Planet, the charming Disney film, and Black Sails, which tells the (somewhat humble) beginnings of Captain Flint, Long John Silver, and many other characters from Louis Stevenson's original. So, I can't say much about that aspect of A Clash of Steel; I kept in mind that it was intended as a sort of riff on that book, but I primarily treated it as its own fresh story.
It only took me a few chapters to realize that this was perhaps not the book for me, but I very, very rarely quit reading a book once I've started it, so I decided to keep pushing forward. Besides, I sometimes find myself warming to a story even if I didn't quite like it in the beginning, so I had hopes that that might be the case here. Sadly, though, it wasn't: for me, this felt like a pain to get through. Probably the main issue is that I just didn't like the writing, which struck me as painfully juvenile; yes, I know that this is YA, but the current style that permeates the genre always strikes me as feeling amateurish. Told in first-person, present-tense (not my favorite at the best of times, to be fair), I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that so many paragraphs begin with "I" that it was giving me a headache.
The worldbuilding is vague. This book is categorized as fantasy, I suppose because it's kind of alternate historical fiction, but aside from that, I can't really tell you what the so-called "fantasy" elements were. Do pirates and hidden treasure automatically qualify a book for the fantasy genre? I'm not sure, so I'll have to get back to you on that one. The images that Lee is able to conjure with her descriptions are beautiful, however. The only problem is that there is too much detail -- the plot ends up dragging because of it.
I liked Xiang well enough, but I'm not sure I ever really became emotionally attached to her. I liked her love interest, Anh, a little better; she's spunky, a little prickly, and ambitious. The rest of the characters never felt fully developed or realized, and even though Xiang tells us time and time again how bonded she ends up becoming with the ragtag crew she joins up with (not a spoiler, as it's in the synopsis!), I never really saw any evidence of that with my own eyes. Sure, she told us, but as far as scenes that show us these friendships, they scarcely exist at all. It was actually similar to her relationship with Anh on that score, too. Although she does spend more time with Anh than any of the others, and there is a touch more development between them, there's still a lot of telling us that Anh did this, said this, likes or dislikes this, etc. without ever putting those interactions down on-page.
The plot itself doesn't really kick into high-gear until around 70%, and the pacing is extremely slow. I don't mind a book that takes its time, but it was disappointing that the fun, somewhat emotionally charged action scenes don't happen until the very end. I wanted to root for Xiang and Anh and the rest, but everything was just a little too shallow for me to ever become fully invested. I also couldn't get over how conveniently they find everything, how easily their obstacles are overcome, and that they decipher the map basically within seconds, even though they don't actually take their time to ponder it until they're on the island hiding the treasure!
Now, with all of that being said, I think I would have probably loved this if I'd read it when I was sixteen. Teenagers will probably adore this, and I did love the fun ideas at work here (I've been a bit pirate-obsessed since childhood), with the added bonus of a diverse cast and fascinating Vietnamese and Chinese culture woven into the story. It didn't work for me, but tons of people loved this story, and I don't want you to not read it based simply off my review -- for many young people of Vietnamese and/or Chinese descent, this story will probably have a depth and meaning that I simply can't understand.
I do want to add one last note: the author includes a beautiful note at the end of the book which tells us a bit about how she ended up deciding to write this, and her family's story of immigration. I loved that her family's own history inspired her to craft this story, and regardless of how I ended up feeling about this book, there's a wonderful meaning behind it.
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