Reviews

I think the question that sums up this book for me is, “what’s the point?, which is supremely disappointing. I was expecting an epic tale of love across lifetimes full of hope and heartache, but I just feel empty. This isn’t a tale of love but of lust and obsession, but not the interesting kind of lust and obsession where people do crazy, self-destructive things. I don’t want the main couple to be together because I don’t really have a reason to, but I also don’t care if they don’t end up together because they aren’t toxic. The narrative structure doesn’t help this problem because of the choice to to have a story in three parallel narratives with each cut up and then spliced together. In none of the three lifetimes do I feel a reason to root for the main couple because of

the betrayal in the first that started the supposed curse, infidelity, which felt unmotivated and dumb

, and the other two lifetimes only have the characters motivated by lust and obsession. It’s all so empty and boring by the end. If I feel anything it’s disappointment at that. I feel an interesting story could’ve been told, but it wasn’t. It’s wild to me that the story involving actual historical court intrigue and a time of instability in the Han dynasty was reduced to something so boring and fizzled out into nothing, as did the other two lifetimes. I just don’t care about anything, and I hate that because I wanted to like it. I can’t even despise the other guy in the love triangle (except in the middle lifetime where he truly is awful, but he gets brutally killed because of it yay!). One star given for some pretty imagery and language. I’m glad some people like this book, but I did not.

Content Warnings

emuhly's review against another edition

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2.0

came for the reincarnated soulmates, left confused by the lack of real plot, writing that veered toward the overly poetic at the worst of times, absolute lack of real chemistry building between the romantic leads, and the third reincarnated guy (NOT in a fun polyamory way)

alexao's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

miraclesnow's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A strong start but there were some plotting issues, esp in how some reveals were done before others that should have been reversed & the ending will not to be to everyone’s taste. I think it was a good fantasy litfic end, def not a romance even tho that’s what initial impressions had everyone think of it as

Content Warnings

elliiecrne22's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

it's a really
entertaining read, but there are definitely a lot of problems with it. it's very weird, kind of an acid trip of a book, which i enjoyed immensely. the plot twists were really engaging, but also very frustrating--kinda took me out of the book just a little. the author established like 50 plot lines/threads of the narrative and only tied up most of them, but left a bunch of them loose. tldr; very engaging and entertaining read, fun historical fantasy, but objectively the narrative and structure is problematic/clumsy

mainjain's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

bethany6788's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious fast-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

I just finished this book and said out loud “what a f***ing wild ride.”

Did I understand what was going on all of the time? No. I thought I did but I had some of it backwards!!

*(Mini spoiler I guess?)*

AND I SUSPECTED CALVIN PLZ FORGIVE ME.

But by the time this book ends my jaw had dropped. I kept looking at the time left in my book like it can’t all wrap up in this small amount.

Reader - it did. And I am floored. Then I read the acknowledgements. Some of this is based on real circumstances!!! Mind blown and I will be researching.

I’d totally read another book by this author.

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