Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (ARC Review)

Title: Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor
Author: Xiran Jay Zhao
Type: Fiction
Genre: Middle Grade, Contemporary, LGBTQ
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Date published: May 10, 2022

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Zachary Ying never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage. His single mom was busy enough making sure they got by, and his schools never taught anything except Western history and myths. So Zack is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open.

The mission takes an immediate wrong turn when the First Emperor botches his attempt to possess Zack’s body and binds to Zack’s AR gaming headset instead, leading to a battle where Zack’s mom’s soul gets taken by demons. Now, with one of history’s most infamous tyrants yapping in his headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor’s incredible water dragon powers.

And if Zack can’t finish the mission in time, the spirits of the underworld will flood into the mortal realm, and he could lose his mom forever.

⤖ My Review ⬻

I don’t read a lot of middle grade at all. These days I’m finding that I struggle to understand the thought processes, decisions, and reasoning of younger characters in YA books, so main characters in middle grade books are logically even more difficult for me. That being said, when I heard that Xiran Jay Zhao, the author of one of my favourite releases of 2021, Iron Widow, was writing a middle grade book, I knew that I had to give it a try!

When I dove into my advanced reader copy of Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor I definitely did so with high expectations. I had loved Zhao’s story and writing in Iron Widow, so I definitely expected this to be the case with Zachary Ying’s book as well…and I wasn’t wrong! The story and writing were great, as I’d anticipated…but it was rather the characters that became an obstacle for me. Don’t get me wrong, the characters were well-written and were definitely believable. For me it was that they were just so young.

I really struggled (as I had expected a little bit at the back of my mind) with their decisions, the way they view the world—I also just couldn’t imagine being so far away from being an adult, leading an adult life. While, like many others, I sometimes look back to my childhood with some yearning—those definitely were simpler times with less responsibilities—I enjoy and really value my independence as an adult.

Some of the limits placed on these characters due to their age, and the way some adults treated them, just kept interfering with my getting fully immersed in the story. So, while I praise Zhao’s writing and creativity and definitely recommend Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor to others, I myself will likely not continue the series.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Xiran Jay Zhao is a first-gen immigrant from small-town China who was raised by the Internet. A recent graduate of Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University, they wrote science fiction and fantasy while they probably should have been studying more about biochemical pathways. You can find them on Twitter for memes, Instagram for cosplays and fancy outfits, and YouTube for long videos about Chinese history and culture. Iron Widow is their first novel.…