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miggyfool's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
nenaveenstra's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book is unlike anything I've ever read. Granted, I don't read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy, but I doubt that any other books have such a fierce female anti-hero as a main character as Zetian is. I was rooting for her while she destroyed the world, I felt for her hatred towards men, and I found it all utterly believable.
At the beginning, I was still comparing this book to The Hunger Games and Divergent in my head, and there are some parallels, sure (the most obvious being the female main character who participates in 'the system' only to rebel against it), but this really is a story of its own right, with characters that had more backstory, a very feminist one at that, and feelings other than the complicated love triangle they found themselves in.
Speaking of love triangles, I loved the one in here, and I'm dying to see how it further develops in the sequel(s). (Spoiler alert: it's a polyamorous love triangle, and I would die for it.) I never thought I would say this, but I think I'm continuing the series?
Praise aside, I did skim some of the battles, had to re-read a lot of sentences and I could barely keep some of the characters apart. Part of this is to blame on myself, and my lack of experience with the genre, part is the fact that Chinese names don't have any inherent meaning for me. It's all on me, is what I'm saying, but it did diminish my enjoyment of the book and that's why I'm 'only' giving it 4 stars.
At the beginning, I was still comparing this book to The Hunger Games and Divergent in my head, and there are some parallels, sure (the most obvious being the female main character who participates in 'the system' only to rebel against it), but this really is a story of its own right, with characters that had more backstory, a very feminist one at that, and feelings other than the complicated love triangle they found themselves in.
Speaking of love triangles, I loved the one in here, and I'm dying to see how it further develops in the sequel(s). (Spoiler alert: it's a polyamorous love triangle, and I would die for it.) I never thought I would say this, but I think I'm continuing the series?
Praise aside, I did skim some of the battles, had to re-read a lot of sentences and I could barely keep some of the characters apart. Part of this is to blame on myself, and my lack of experience with the genre, part is the fact that Chinese names don't have any inherent meaning for me. It's all on me, is what I'm saying, but it did diminish my enjoyment of the book and that's why I'm 'only' giving it 4 stars.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Violence, and War
Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, and Racism
Minor: Fatphobia, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Murder
ticktock's review
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
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Rape
aviery's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, and War
Moderate: Death, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, and Grief
intothestarrysea's review
I really wanted to like this book. Conceptually, it had a lot of great things, and the MC was unhinged in an amazing way.
But man, the misogyny. And I don’t just mean the evil patriarchy in the book. I mean in the way her sister is fridged and then almost never brought up again, as if she didn’t exist except as plot motivation. I mean in the way the MC has 0 female friends and there is not a single female character she has a positive relationship with. I mean in the way the MC wants to end the killing of girls but is 100% okay with slaughtering boys. I mean in the way this book doesn’t pass the Bechdel test. I mean in the waysome guy makes her strip naked and read a contract on camera, and she says whatever, humiliation is just a state of mind, effectively invalidating all the women (and people) who have felt shame and humiliation from that same thing. It kind of blames them for feeling shamed.
It was a good idea, and in many ways, it actually felt like the hunger games. It just didn’t hit the mark for me.
But man, the misogyny. And I don’t just mean the evil patriarchy in the book. I mean in the way her sister is fridged and then almost never brought up again, as if she didn’t exist except as plot motivation. I mean in the way the MC has 0 female friends and there is not a single female character she has a positive relationship with. I mean in the way the MC wants to end the killing of girls but is 100% okay with slaughtering boys. I mean in the way this book doesn’t pass the Bechdel test. I mean in the way
It was a good idea, and in many ways, it actually felt like the hunger games. It just didn’t hit the mark for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, and Alcohol
Foot bindingalexisgarcia's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
this was a good and somewhat educational read. however, i struggled with the worldbuilding and the "magic" system. i found myself lost at some points.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
squidface's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
First, I'd like to justify my choices above. Then I'll deep dive into my full review of this book. There will be general spoilers in this review, and I will hide major spoilers.
So, I can't realistically say either way that the book was plot or character driven. It was probably a mix, but both were weak.
The character development was probably there for... I'd say at least one character, at a push two or three.
Personally I didn't mesh / particularly like or root for any of the characters (more below).
Diverse characters?If you count having two bisexual male protagonists as diverse, then yes. But other than that, I wouldn't say the cast of characters is particularly diverse
Character flaws? Oh boy, I can't. I can't even. What this author thinks are character flaws don't actually hinder the characters at all.
So, let's start with the positives. I was stoked to read a mecha book, being a huge mecha fan. I really liked that the book was influenced by Chinese culture, folklore, and history - honestly that aspect of the book earned it a full point from me. Using things like qi and meridians and animals that are sacred/part of Chinese legend, absolutely chef kiss from me on that. If this book goes any way towards getting people more engaged with and interested in Eastern cultures, that's a wonderful thing. I also liked the mech system in general, and the fact that the qi was basically a good way of explaining something of a "magic system" that was inherent to the plot, towards the end. I think perhaps it could have had a little more explanation, but only to round it off a bit. Other than that this was one of the stronger elements of the whole book and felt like the most polished aspect.
Other than that... let's focus on the other puzzle pieces we have here.
I felt the prose in general made this book stand out as a debut novel. I have no idea whether the author is a seasoned writer or not, but their prose is at times clunky and awkward. They're using verbs in a "quirky" way, not necessarily a "creative" way, but for some reason the editor and publishers haven't streamlined much of this at all. The descriptions aren't usually the ones I wanted - the book focuses a lot on battle scenes, I can think that there's at least 4-5 battle scenes during the book. Granted, the majority of the events take place on the front lines of a war, but it seemed to me as I got halfway through that the author used "the invasion alarms sounding" as a get-out clause to avoid many character development scenes or relationship building scenes. I also wasn't a fan of the endless adjectives, and also the tendency for the author to use 10 words where 2 would do, just to seemingly write around a cliche or a standard way of writing something. Didn't work for me.
The MC somehow knows what a "glitch" is (somewhere towards the end of the book she describes the landscape as looking all the same - as if they were running through a glitch). I have no idea how a peasant girl who doesn't have access to a tablet/technology for the first 19 years of her life understands what a glitch is or what one looks like. Unless it's one of those things just everyone kinda knows about - implied scifi knowledge? IDK, it stood out like a sore thumb to me. So while the MC did have a voice of her own, she was also pretty damn well lyrical with her explanations of things, in a way that sometimes took away from the rash and angry nature of the character.
The themes in the book were also clunky, awkward, and glaringly obvious. Nothing subtle here about the feminist overtones. In no way am I saying that inclusion of feminism is a bad thing - but the approach here was amateur and I'm not really sure what sort of feminism we had. The war-mongering, man-hating kind I guess. Our protagonist has absolutely no precedence for the types of feminist thought she has, other than "my mother and grandmother and sister and generations of women before me have had to endure this gruelling, toxic world where we are subservient to men". Ok, fine. It fits with the world and maybe it'll make more sense when the sequel comes out. It's implied that the women, who usually have higher spirit pressures, are culled/controlled, because this means there are less balanced matches in the world. It's not unusual to have an army following orders that actually screen what's truly going on, but the fact we got the plot twist in the second to last chapter felt cheap.
Slavery/subservience/breaking free of thy chains/deception/trusting/trauma/alcoholism/ and to a certain extent capitalism are all touched on, but to me they seemed more like the cherry on top of everything (or what people like to call an afterthought) than actual deep themes the author was keen to explore. Sure you can taste the cherry and enjoy it, but without it the dish is more or less the same, and it's added more for aesthetic and appeal than anything with more depth.
The pacing was.... something.
Look, I have no doubt that this book is popular, and certainly has some positives - I know everyone is excited that it has bi representation and also polyam representation. I do sort of wish we could have representation of polyam without the people within that relationship dynamic having to already be outcasts of the world/going against the grain.
I wonder how much this book honestly looks like it's original manuscript, and how much was stripped out, because by all accounts the author does say that they intended for there to be "more domestic scenes" which probably would have helped a lot towards character development. The only character who really shone at all for me was Shimin, because he's obviously a product of his trauma. But I felt the characters were messy and sometimes the justifications for what they were doing were so instantaneous or badly explained that I barely had time to register what was going on. The author didn't really let the protagonist feel much aside from constant anger or pain. Also, giving your protagonist a physical disability is not inherently a good character flaw. She can't walk, yet the solution to this is usually that she's scooped up and carried by a strong man. Zetian isn't that introspective to be honest, and she operates a bit like a one-woman army. Her motivations remain more or less strong and she does stick by her convictions, but by the time the polyam sparks start flying she's forgotten 50 pages ago that she's annoyed at herself for being so pretty and headstrong that all the men around her want her. She's described as being chunky twice, but it's sort of a throwaway comment both times (also how the eff would a peasant girl become softer-figured?) and struck me as the author just wanting to have an "unconventionally attractive" female protagonist, while still making her very beautiful.
MC is a mary sue, and the only other flaw I see in her is that she is willing to sacrifice to achieve her goals. I don't know where that is going to get her when she has nothing left to sacrifice.
But does all of this really matter, when it's blatant commercial fiction? Idk, I guess I just prefer my asian-influenced scifi robot mecha futuristic fiction to be a little more clever and well-written.
P.S. Not sure what initially labelled this as "too dark to be YA" in the eyes of the publishers, or what makes anyone think that it's similar to The Handmaid's Tale (other than women being a subservient class?). There is for sure some imagery later in the book that could be disturbing, but you have teens reading The Road; you tell me which one is more mentally disturbing?
So, I can't realistically say either way that the book was plot or character driven. It was probably a mix, but both were weak.
The character development was probably there for... I'd say at least one character, at a push two or three.
Personally I didn't mesh / particularly like or root for any of the characters (more below).
Diverse characters?
Character flaws? Oh boy, I can't. I can't even. What this author thinks are character flaws don't actually hinder the characters at all.
So, let's start with the positives. I was stoked to read a mecha book, being a huge mecha fan. I really liked that the book was influenced by Chinese culture, folklore, and history - honestly that aspect of the book earned it a full point from me. Using things like qi and meridians and animals that are sacred/part of Chinese legend, absolutely chef kiss from me on that. If this book goes any way towards getting people more engaged with and interested in Eastern cultures, that's a wonderful thing. I also liked the mech system in general, and the fact that the qi was basically a good way of explaining something of a "magic system" that was inherent to the plot, towards the end. I think perhaps it could have had a little more explanation, but only to round it off a bit. Other than that this was one of the stronger elements of the whole book and felt like the most polished aspect.
Other than that... let's focus on the other puzzle pieces we have here.
I felt the prose in general made this book stand out as a debut novel. I have no idea whether the author is a seasoned writer or not, but their prose is at times clunky and awkward. They're using verbs in a "quirky" way, not necessarily a "creative" way, but for some reason the editor and publishers haven't streamlined much of this at all. The descriptions aren't usually the ones I wanted - the book focuses a lot on battle scenes, I can think that there's at least 4-5 battle scenes during the book. Granted, the majority of the events take place on the front lines of a war, but it seemed to me as I got halfway through that the author used "the invasion alarms sounding" as a get-out clause to avoid many character development scenes or relationship building scenes. I also wasn't a fan of the endless adjectives, and also the tendency for the author to use 10 words where 2 would do, just to seemingly write around a cliche or a standard way of writing something. Didn't work for me.
The MC somehow knows what a "glitch" is (somewhere towards the end of the book she describes the landscape as looking all the same - as if they were running through a glitch). I have no idea how a peasant girl who doesn't have access to a tablet/technology for the first 19 years of her life understands what a glitch is or what one looks like. Unless it's one of those things just everyone kinda knows about - implied scifi knowledge? IDK, it stood out like a sore thumb to me. So while the MC did have a voice of her own, she was also pretty damn well lyrical with her explanations of things, in a way that sometimes took away from the rash and angry nature of the character.
The themes in the book were also clunky, awkward, and glaringly obvious. Nothing subtle here about the feminist overtones. In no way am I saying that inclusion of feminism is a bad thing - but the approach here was amateur and I'm not really sure what sort of feminism we had. The war-mongering, man-hating kind I guess. Our protagonist has absolutely no precedence for the types of feminist thought she has, other than "my mother and grandmother and sister and generations of women before me have had to endure this gruelling, toxic world where we are subservient to men". Ok, fine. It fits with the world and maybe it'll make more sense when the sequel comes out.
Slavery/subservience/breaking free of thy chains/deception/trusting/trauma/alcoholism/ and to a certain extent capitalism are all touched on, but to me they seemed more like the cherry on top of everything (or what people like to call an afterthought) than actual deep themes the author was keen to explore. Sure you can taste the cherry and enjoy it, but without it the dish is more or less the same, and it's added more for aesthetic and appeal than anything with more depth.
The pacing was.... something.
Look, I have no doubt that this book is popular, and certainly has some positives - I know everyone is excited that it has bi representation and also polyam representation. I do sort of wish we could have representation of polyam without the people within that relationship dynamic having to already be outcasts of the world/going against the grain.
I wonder how much this book honestly looks like it's original manuscript, and how much was stripped out, because by all accounts the author does say that they intended for there to be "more domestic scenes" which probably would have helped a lot towards character development. The only character who really shone at all for me was Shimin, because he's obviously a product of his trauma. But I felt the characters were messy and sometimes the justifications for what they were doing were so instantaneous or badly explained that I barely had time to register what was going on. The author didn't really let the protagonist feel much aside from constant anger or pain. Also, giving your protagonist a physical disability is not inherently a good character flaw. She can't walk, yet the solution to this is usually that she's scooped up and carried by a strong man. Zetian isn't that introspective to be honest, and she operates a bit like a one-woman army. Her motivations remain more or less strong and she does stick by her convictions, but by the time the polyam sparks start flying she's forgotten 50 pages ago that she's annoyed at herself for being so pretty and headstrong that all the men around her want her. She's described as being chunky twice, but it's sort of a throwaway comment both times (also how the eff would a peasant girl become softer-figured?) and struck me as the author just wanting to have an "unconventionally attractive" female protagonist, while still making her very beautiful.
MC is a mary sue, and the only other flaw I see in her is that she is willing to sacrifice to achieve her goals. I don't know where that is going to get her when she has nothing left to sacrifice.
But does all of this really matter, when it's blatant commercial fiction? Idk, I guess I just prefer my asian-influenced scifi robot mecha futuristic fiction to be a little more clever and well-written.
P.S. Not sure what initially labelled this as "too dark to be YA" in the eyes of the publishers, or what makes anyone think that it's similar to The Handmaid's Tale (other than women being a subservient class?). There is for sure some imagery later in the book that could be disturbing, but you have teens reading The Road; you tell me which one is more mentally disturbing?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, and Slavery
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Biphobia, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, and Classism
ali_k0's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
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? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Racism, Vomit, and Colonisation
philippmk's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book was brutal from beginning to end. I love a ruthless protagonist and Zetian development throughout this story makes absolute sense. She, and most other characters, were deeply engaging and I felt that I could understand every choice she made, even if I wouldn't have made them myself.
What confused me a little was how often I had seen this book come up in LGBT+ book lists. While three of our main characters are bisexual and I enjoyed the fleeting polyamory, the queerness of these characters really is a very minor part of the book. That is not to say their queerness isn't valid, but you sholdn't expect a groundbreaking queer romance going into this book — this is not that kind of story.
This was also a book I was told to expect a twist in. Though there was one twist early on in the story (unless you read the text in the book jacket), I was glad to see more throughout the book. And yet, one final twist was revealed literally on the second-to-last page, the lateness of which made it feel like an afterthought.
What confused me a little was how often I had seen this book come up in LGBT+ book lists. While three of our main characters are bisexual and I enjoyed the fleeting polyamory, the queerness of these characters really is a very minor part of the book. That is not to say their queerness isn't valid, but you sholdn't expect a groundbreaking queer romance going into this book — this is not that kind of story.
This was also a book I was told to expect a twist in. Though there was one twist early on in the story (unless you read the text in the book jacket), I was glad to see more throughout the book. And yet, one final twist was revealed literally on the second-to-last page, the lateness of which made it feel like an afterthought.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, and Classism
Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual content
Minor: Biphobia and Domestic abuse
orchidd's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Murder, Alcohol, and War
Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Blood, and Colonisation