Reviews - The Lotus Empire

1.34k reviews for:

The Lotus Empire

Tasha Suri

4.43 AVERAGE

j___h's review

4.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

naoli's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

iftheshoef1tz's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional tense

quiet_stories's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

alannah_niley's review against another edition

5.0

Tasha Suri weaves a tale that is impossibly expansive while also being devastatingly intimate.

A truly epic fantasy conclusion that will leave you wrecked in the most divine way.

storytimed's review against another edition

2.5

BURNING KINGDOMS COMPLETE
Man............. man........................ I don't know....................
I really, really wish I'd like this more
In some ways, I do? Rao's arc is quite satisfying and there are some genuinely striking moments here (the nameless priests learning how to kill the yaksa: very creepy and cool!)
But like......... all the plotlines that I really wanted to see, like perhaps an answer to who and what the yaksa are or some kind of genuinely thorny conflict about the Question of Ahiranyi Independence kinda just. disappeared for Another War Narrative
I'm not into it...............
It kind of felt like Suri decided to dodge the thorny questions of empire and imperial control in favor of an Eldritch horror that we can All Be Against
Also like. It's very difficult actually for me to root for a monarch character who does not actually have any interest in state policy and governance LOL
Like Malini has the very good political stances of "let's not indiscriminately burn people" and "let's not discriminate against other provinces" but aside from that. GIRL, what do you plan to do about the food
And at the end where she just blithely throws her nephew into the emperor's seat and is like lol! and dips out to go chill with her gf
Like I'm sorry but that's sooooo individualist
Actually you do have to have some noblesse oblige after THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE died to put you on that damn throne!
Malini/Priya is like. Ok yes you get a happy ending, ok yes you get some scenes of being TORTURED that you cannot be together
But like........... although I like that intellectually I wish we'd spent more time with them in conflict? ESPECIALLY when Malini has Priya captured and held prisoner lol
It feels like the author did not have the courage for her characters to be intentionally bad people and have the agency to do bad things
So they are.......... accidentally bad people by way of sort of just giving up
And my girl Bhumika had amnesia this whole time and didn't even get to lead a peasant rebellion so what the fuck was the point
Honestly the most interesting characters here in this installment were the yaksa!! The body horror of realizing that they are MEAT was so fun and I would actually have loved to have 25% of the narrative just be yaksa shenanigans