Despite not being familiar with the original Water Margin tale, I really enjoyed this retelling! I was moved by the coming-together of all these ragtag bandits, often outcast on the basis of gender (or simply for committing very gnarly crimes) and their fight to protect their home. As a primary protagonist, Lin Chong is strong, interesting, and flawed, and I'm personally biased towards women in fiction who struggle with rule-following and casting off the flawed beliefs that have been instilled in them. My favorite character, however, is probably Lu Da, for her kindness, boisterous personality, and love of violence--I felt like she was a really refreshing character and helped keep the tone of the book light. I think I would've liked a little bit more focus on the bonds between the water bandits themselves, but even still, I was rooting for them the whole way through. The magic system also helped to draw me in; I found the concept of the god's teeth/fangs super interesting, and I liked the way they interacted with the action and combat elements of the story! The magical elements meshed very nicely with this historical setting and really helped keep everything exciting and tense. Another of my favorite parts of this work were the fight scenes themselves--Huang definitely doesn't skimp on the violence or the brutality of these fights, and while I could see that being off-putting for some, I really enjoyed it and felt like it made the climax of the book all the more intense.

There were places in the Water Outlaws that felt a little bit slow or where my attention lagged, especially around the middle. This is a pretty dense book. Still, once I was in the last ~150 pages or so, I really couldn't put the book down without getting to the end! I was so invested in the climax and really drawn into the story, despite any slower moments beforehand.