Mystery Book Review - Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"On the fringes of the Great Spice Road, Maia Tamarin works as a seamstress in the shop of her father, once a tailor of renown. She dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well.

When a royal messenger summons her ailing father to court, Maia poses as his son and travels to the Summer Palace in his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she'll take that risk to save her family from ruin and achieve her dream of becoming the imperial tailor. There's just once catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.

The competition is cutthroat, and Maia's job is further complicated by the unwelcome attention of the court enchanter, Edan, who seems to see straight through her disguise. But nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three gowns so dangerously beautiful, it will take a quest to the ends of the earth to complete them..."

 This felt like a book that wasn't entirely sure what it wanted to be. Initially, it felt a bit like an epic tale, a little slow-paced but painting a full picture, very detailed world-building and grand storytelling. Then, after Maia began her journey to complete her final challenge, it shifted into more of a romance, focusing more on the (somewhat unearned) relationship between her and Edan than on the adventure. It also sort of jumped back and forth between things in a way that felt...disorganized? And I think maybe it bit off a little more story than could be told in a satisfying way, which did a disservice to the narrative. 

I think if the drama between the tailors had been pared down, her animosity and distrust toward Edan (and magic in general, which I found to be a weird choice to begin with) had been tweaked, and there had been a little more focus and development on her working specifically with/for the Emperor's betrothed to become the royal tailor, the book as a whole would have read more smoothly and been more satisfying. Instead, there was a lot of back and forth with the tailors, which took up a lot of time only for them to be cut from the story and not feature again, there was very little development of any of the characters, even Maia and Edan, and a lot of their adventure fell flat as a result. 

Possibly the most compelling part, for me, was when they met up with a caravan after leaving the desert, because the members of the caravan seemed the most clearly developed and three-dimensional of all the characters in the book. And that's a shame, because that wasn't even a major part of the book. The majority of the characters read more as caricatures, and even Maia is underdeveloped and flat. This book reminded me a bit of Mulan, if Mulan was a seamstress instead of going to war and if she acted like a ten-year-old until she suddenly fell in love with an enchanter and decided to make out with and ultimately sleep with him throughout her entire adventure. It was a fine read, and I didn't dislike it, but it was disjointed and everything just felt a bit...off.