I was about twenty pages into The Night Ends with Fire by K.X. Song when I realized the novel was a knockoff. If you're a fan of Disney, the story of Mulan is probably very familiar: girl protects her family by pretending to be a boy and joining the army. This book is about the same character, but her motivations are all dark and negative, and nothing you could really call heroic. She's not protecting her family, she's abandoning them to her drug addict dad to avoid a marriage to a cruel man he arranged. This Mulan is angry and greedy and all about herself, which is fine. That's pretty much the modern lifestory these days.
The writing is quite deft, and the pacing is consistent. The author has the skills to write well, and does. I just kept getting sidelined by the knockoff aspects. The main character is not sympathetic or even likeable, and since I am a female who served in the military I should have at least identified with her. Instead I wished she'd run away to do something else.
I managed to finish the book despite not being a knockoff or a Disney fan. I also anticipated (and confirmed by reading it) an unsatisfying and highly annoying ending. This isn't a complete story but maybe half or a third of a series. So there's no finish, just a massive cliffhanger. As I have two very big biases against this novel, that's all I really want to say about it.
I know knockoff novels are very attractive to certain writers who want success and are willing to sacrifice originality to get it. There is a huge segment of the reading population who want to read the same story over and over again, too (some writers I know just do that -- write one great novel and then repeat it for the rest of their careers.) Dark and twisty knockoffs had their day, but now it seems they may be making a comeback. I can't recommend this one unless all that sort of stuff is your cup of tea. It's just not mine.
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