Legend of the White Snake by Sher Lee

Rating: 4.5 stars

Age Recommendation: 14 and up

Release date: October 15, 2024

Legend of the White Snake is an emotional and romantic historical Chinese fantasy--a twist on one of China's four great four great folktales (more specifically, it appears to be based on the Chinese opera version of the tale). It tells the story of a prince (Xian) who falls in love with a snake spirit he believes to be a stable hand (Zhen).  Xian and Zhen's potential romance is complicated not just by Zhen's secret that he is a snake spirit, but that Zhen may be the key to saving Xian's mother, who was bitten by a white snake ten years earlier and has been sick ever since.

While in the folktale, the snake spirit is always a woman, here, the snake spirit is a boy. Indeed, Legend of the White Snake takes place in a queer-normative world (the book touches on ancient Chinese history where some emperors were known to have had male consorts). Legend of the White Snake reads like a fairy tale where magic and spirits are real, but clearly contains references to actual Chinese history. For this reason, it felt like a camp fire story, one passed along by oral tradition rather than in the written word. Just to be clear--I enjoyed the style very much. I am not as familiar with Chinese history and folklore, nor do you need to be to enjoy the book. Explanations for words, objects, traditions, etc. are seamlessly woven throughout the story.

At its heart, Legend of the White Snake is a young adult book. Both Xian and Zhen (who are supposed to be around the age of 17) go through a journey of discovery about themselves. There is a definite boy to man character arc for the both (or young snake spirit to young adult snake spirit for Zhen, as it were). It contains a couple of closed-door romantic scenes between the two, but the romance is based more in emotion than physicality. I would recommend Legend of the White Snake for any young adult (or young adult at heart) who has a love for history and folktales.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for allowing me to read the e-arc for this book in exchange for an honest review.