Serpentine (Cindy Pon)

Author Biography

Cindy Pon is the author of four YA fantasy novels and a member of the We Need Diverse Books advisory board. In 2011, she co-founded the Diversity in YA blog with Malinda Lo.

Published By: Month9Books

Year: 2015

ISBN-10: 1942664338

ISBN-13: 978-1942664338

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up

Reader’s Annotation:

Young handmaiden Skybright is more like a sister than a servant to her mistress Zhen Ni. But will their friendship survive if Zhen Ni learns Skybright’s dark secret – that she is actually half-human, half-serpent demon?

Plot Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Skybright has been handmaiden and friend to Zhen Ni ever since the latter’s wealthy family found her abandoned as a baby. Her life is comfortable, until she begins having terrible dreams in which she transforms into a monster: half-human, half slithering, red-scaled snake. Then, one night, she wakes up to find her nightmare come true! All her life, Skybright has heard tales of serpent demons, known for seducing and killing unsuspecting men. To her horror, she realizes she’s one of them.

Shifting back into human form by day, Skybright dares tell no one her secret. Least of all Kai Sen, a friendly monastery ward with whom she finds herself falling in love; or Zhen Ni, whose friendship she couldn’t bear to lose. But Zhen Ni is already spending less time with Skybright and more with fellow highborn girl Lan, while inexplicably resisting marriage. More ominously, a breach between earth and the underworld is causing demons and the undead to appear on earth by night. The monks and their apprentices, including Kai Sen, are waging war against them. What will this war mean for Skybright now that she herself is a demon?

Critical Evaluation:

This dark, mystical and heartfelt novel is one that will absorb any lover of fantasy and mythology. While the theme of a hero or heroine who is secretly a supernatural monster (or half-human, half monster) is hardly new to YA fantasy, author Pon creates an intriguing variation on that theme by setting it in the China-inspired Kingdom of Xia, rich with details of ancient Chinese culture and mythology, and by making her heroine a serpent demon, reminiscent of the Greek Medusa and the Chinese Lady White Snake. Skybright goes through agonizing terror and self-loathing, but gradually comes to embrace her serpent form, in which her senses are exhilaratingly heightened and in which her physical prowess and ties to the underworld can be used to protect her loved ones. The latter realization becomes all-important when Zhen Ni runs away to meet her lesbian lover Lan and is kidnapped by a bull demon.

This book also stands out in that it revolves around two female characters’ close friendship. While Skybright’s romance with Kai Sen is important and heartwarming (even if it does progress at Disney-esque speed), the story’s linchpin is her bond with Zhen Ni. Unlike in other popular female-bonding stories (e.g. Beaches, Wicked), this refreshingly occurs without the girls being pitted against each other in a love triangle. Furthermore, the fact that Zhen Ni is a lesbian shows that queer and straight women can be friends without sexuality interfering… and, as Skybright specifically learns, that having a lover of any gender makes platonic friendship no less valuable.

Ultimately, both Zhen Ni and Kai Sen are willing to kill or die for Skybright and she for them. This selflessness leads to a deeply melancholy ending, but not one without hope. It leaves the reader almost unbearably anxious for the upcoming sequel.

Curriculum Ties:

•Chinese mythology

•Fantasy worlds

Challenge Issues:

•Violence

•Disturbing imagery

•Nudity

•Sex

•LGBTQ themes

•Rape references

•Menstruation and bodily function references

Why This Book?

Any reader in search of a book with a lovingly-depicted non-Western setting, with LGBTQ representation, with a heartfelt portrait of strong female friendship, and with a lush, imaginative atmosphere of dark fantasy needs look no further than Serpentine.