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novelty_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I LOVED this book!
Literally from the first page I was hooked with the story, characters and historical and fantastical world building. From the first few pages I immediately knew The Scarlet Alchemist could become a new favourite book of mine.
The Scarlet Alchemist follows Zilan, a girl who dreams of becoming a royal alchemist. Joining her cousins on their quest to become royal scholars, Zilan finds herself among the royal court uncovering political plots and schemes. When the Prince appears, knowing of Zilan's ability to resurrect the dead, she discovers things are not as they seem.
I absolutely loved the world-building in this book. Zilan's home town? The royal palace? I could imagine every place and I felt transported into the story. I loved seeing the home life and relations between Zilan and her cousins and their secret resurrection business. The resurrections brought another element to the book including a rock based alchemy system that I really enjoyed reading about.
The characters made this book. Wenshu and Yufei's banter with Zilan made me laugh out loud. Each character has their distinct personality and there was never a dull moment with them. Two other characters I loved was the Prince and the duck, Durian. The entire scene at the pond with the ducks made me cackle out loud.
The only criticism I have is with the side characters, the alchemists. They clearly were a big part of Zilan's life and yet we never learned more about them than their titles (the moon alchemist being an exception here). The ending would've hit harder if we got to know the alchemists a little better.
Speaking of endings though, this book was plot twist after plot twist after plot twist. My mouth hung open wide at some points with the thought: "That did not just happen??" at the forefront. I cannot wait for book two, I desperately need to talk over this ending with someone!
ACTUAL RATING: 4.8 STARS
I LOVED this book!
Literally from the first page I was hooked with the story, characters and historical and fantastical world building. From the first few pages I immediately knew The Scarlet Alchemist could become a new favourite book of mine.
The Scarlet Alchemist follows Zilan, a girl who dreams of becoming a royal alchemist. Joining her cousins on their quest to become royal scholars, Zilan finds herself among the royal court uncovering political plots and schemes. When the Prince appears, knowing of Zilan's ability to resurrect the dead, she discovers things are not as they seem.
I absolutely loved the world-building in this book. Zilan's home town? The royal palace? I could imagine every place and I felt transported into the story. I loved seeing the home life and relations between Zilan and her cousins and their secret resurrection business. The resurrections brought another element to the book including a rock based alchemy system that I really enjoyed reading about.
The characters made this book. Wenshu and Yufei's banter with Zilan made me laugh out loud. Each character has their distinct personality and there was never a dull moment with them. Two other characters I loved was the Prince and the duck, Durian. The entire scene at the pond with the ducks made me cackle out loud.
The only criticism I have is with the side characters, the alchemists. They clearly were a big part of Zilan's life and yet we never learned more about them than their titles (the moon alchemist being an exception here). The ending would've hit harder if we got to know the alchemists a little better.
Speaking of endings though, this book was plot twist after plot twist after plot twist. My mouth hung open wide at some points with the thought: "That did not just happen??" at the forefront. I cannot wait for book two, I desperately need to talk over this ending with someone!
ACTUAL RATING: 4.8 STARS
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Torture, Racial slurs, Murder, Grief, Gore, Death of parent, Animal death, Death, Child death, Body horror, and Blood
tanpopo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
I have many issues with this book, both plot wise and historically/culturally accurate wise.
If you came looking for an authentically Asian-inspired fantasy, this is not the book. Was the inspiration there? Yes, of course, it's speculative fiction based off of a real Chinese historical figure. However, few things about this book actually felt Chinese, from the way the characters behaved to the details about the world, and the lack of care with all these inaccuracies really drew me out of the story's time period and culture.
While reading, it felt like this was a story written by an edgy teenaged girl from LA in her secret journal.
Let's start with the inaccuracies that I noticed. I could have written them down as I ran across them, but I wanted to at least try to enjoy the story, so these are the ones that I remember from memory.
Let's start with some small stuff:
If you came looking for an authentically Asian-inspired fantasy, this is not the book. Was the inspiration there? Yes, of course, it's speculative fiction based off of a real Chinese historical figure. However, few things about this book actually felt Chinese, from the way the characters behaved to the details about the world, and the lack of care with all these inaccuracies really drew me out of the story's time period and culture.
While reading, it felt like this was a story written by an edgy teenaged girl from LA in her secret journal.
Let's start with the inaccuracies that I noticed. I could have written them down as I ran across them, but I wanted to at least try to enjoy the story, so these are the ones that I remember from memory.
Let's start with some small stuff:
- Hanfu, the clothing worn during this time, do not have pockets. People carried their items in purses/pouches, which they then either carried, stored in their sleeves, or inside the front flap of their clothing on the chest.
Throughout the story, characters are mentioned to be putting things in and out of their pockets. As well as a mention of pickpocketing and how Zilan could have just "burnt a hole in his pocket" so that he'd think his money just fell out.
- Hanfu also do not have buttons. It is closed with ties on the front or side.
When Zilan is having her back checked, her dress was unbuttoned instead of untied.
- During this time period, people did not wear coats, but rather cloaks. Slight difference.
- Rooms were not heated by fireplaces. They were heated by coal/charcoal burning censers and braziers.
- The concept of boyfriend/girlfriend, let alone the words meaning anything besides "a friend that is a boy/girl", did not exist at this time and wouldn't for a long while.
- The ancients did not have bread. They had buns (steamed buns, usually with fillings) and flatbreads, but not loaves as we imagine bread today. Breads were also not a staple food item like it was in the west.
Li Hong feeds his ducks "loaves of bread" all the time. Zilan then criticized him for doing so, saying that bread is unhealthy for ducks. While this is true, this is a fact that was only recently discovered/made into common knowledge. People back in the day probably would not have thought about something like that or had even known.
Regardless, Li Hong might have feed the ducks flatbreads every once in awhile, but more likely than not, a servant would be the one taking care of them and feeding them. The prince feeding them bread would have been more like a treat rather than their actual diet.
Regardless, Li Hong might have feed the ducks flatbreads every once in awhile, but more likely than not, a servant would be the one taking care of them and feeding them. The prince feeding them bread would have been more like a treat rather than their actual diet.
- People did not use gold as currency. Ok, sure gold was used, but is was not at all common. Same with silver. Silver and gold were melted down into yuanbao, the gold nuggets you'll commonly see on Chinese New Year decorations as they are a symbol of wealth and prosperity. These weren't minted, but rather commissioned by gold and silversmiths to produce. If/When these are used as currency, an trusted money handler would determine the yuanbao's value.
Actual currency used by the people during the Tang Dynasty, especially commoners, was called kai yuan tong bao, and looked like the classic Chinese coins you might think of with a square hole in the center. These coins were not made of silver or gold, but rather a mixture of copper, lead, tin, and sometimes bronze, brass, or iron.
But Life Gold is such a big deal in this book, so why not use gold as this universe's currency? Well to me it still doesn't make sense. There can not possibly be enough gold in a kingdom the size of Ancient China to make a functional economy. That's why less precious materials are used in a lot of currencies around the world. Rare enough/hard enough to reproduce to give it value, but not so rare as to make it pretty much impossible for regular people to actually obtain said currency.
Being how selfish and tyrannical Wu Zetian is presented in this book, it also doesn't make sense for her to allow gold to just casually be used as currency. She'd want it all for herself.
Which leads to another point of confusion that I didn't understand about this book. It was mentioned multiple times that the value of gold was decreasing in this book, thus causing inflation. If gold is the main component of Life Gold, gold should be highly sought after, not to mention the literal consumption of gold, thus depleting a non-renewable resource. This all should increase its value and worth. So why in this book is its value decreasing? The value of gold should sky rocket because of how important this mineral is.
But Life Gold is such a big deal in this book, so why not use gold as this universe's currency? Well to me it still doesn't make sense. There can not possibly be enough gold in a kingdom the size of Ancient China to make a functional economy. That's why less precious materials are used in a lot of currencies around the world. Rare enough/hard enough to reproduce to give it value, but not so rare as to make it pretty much impossible for regular people to actually obtain said currency.
Which leads to another point of confusion that I didn't understand about this book. It was mentioned multiple times that the value of gold was decreasing in this book, thus causing inflation. If gold is the main component of Life Gold, gold should be highly sought after, not to mention the literal consumption of gold, thus depleting a non-renewable resource. This all should increase its value and worth. So why in this book is its value decreasing? The value of gold should sky rocket because of how important this mineral is.
The Hulingjing and her execution. Fox spirits can be either benevolent or malevolent. During the Tang Dynasty, the period this story is supposed to be taking place, fox spirit worship was very popular, and they were more often than not benevolent. There was even a saying that said "Where there is no fox demon, no village can be established".
It might not be completely odd to see a hulijing killed, since it depends on the spirit itself rather than the species as a whole. Though maybe it would be more unusual to see this during this time period, but the method used to kill the woman was weird to see in this setting.
Death by burning felt very European witch hunt. Executions in Ancient China were often beheadings or strangulation. If the author wanted to keep this woman's death brutal, she could have maybe had the woman tied up while dogs were let going to attack her. Hulijing could be killed by normal methods, and hunting dog parties were not uncommon as dogs were their greatest enemies.
- Unless alchemists are able to feel the energy from stones (which I don't think was ever mentioned), I do not know how Zilan would have been able to tell the stones apart by touch. If they were all cut into different shapes, and had very different textures, then maybe she could tell them apart. But most stones aren't going to be like that. Sight is very important when identifying stones. If there was some kind of explanation for how she was able to do this, then it would make more sense to me.
- Not sure if this was intentional by the author or not, but women and commoners were not able to take the civil exams. It was only after Wu Zetian became emperor that she opened up the tests for everyone, not before. It could be that Empress Wu made the change anyways during these 100 years while the Emperor was ill. But again, I do not know if this was a conscious decision or not. It just had me thinking when I first heard it.
- Just a quick annoyance, but is was briefly mentioned that bloodstone was made up with clay, which is just 100% incorrect. I am not sure where she got this information. The stone is green jasper with red hematite inclusions which create the blood-looking spots.
Some more major points:
- The names of the original characters in this book are just terrible. At least for the ones that we are given the characters (hanzi) for or are hinted at. The author's naming conventions and understanding of how names are given clearly shows that she at most has a year 1 level of Chinese language knowledge. I am not fluent in Chinese, but even I could tell that the names sounded off. I asked my friend, who is a native speaker, what she thought of these names, and she confirmed that they were indeed very weird.
So getting into some specifics, at the very beginning of the novel, we are introduced to a background character named Gao Youjin 高有金. His first name literally means to have gold (有=to have 金=gold). Right on the nose since this character was rich. However, You 有 is not used for names and is weird to see it here. His name is basically just a direct sentence describing him. If his parents wanted to name him after money, they would have been more creative in doing so.
Next is Wenshu 文書. Wen 文 is a character commonly used in names meaning literary/writing/culture/language, so we are fine there. Shu 書(书) on the other hand means book. I can see where the author was coming from, trying to give him a scholar-y name, but Shu 書(书) just isn't used for names and looks weird.
Zilan 紫蘭(兰).... I have a lot to say about this one. Zilan is not actually a bad name. There is a famous Chinese artist, Guan Zilan (關紫蘭), with the name. I didn't know about her until I tried looking up (in both English and Chinese) what a zilan flower looked like, and she was one of the top results when you looked up the name in pinyin.
In the book, zilan is said to be a common flower that you see on the side of the road. This immediately made me pause and question if zilan was the name of an actual flower or not in Chinese. The answer that I found was no. It's quite literally just an orchid that is purple.
I honestly question if the author knows what an orchid is. Orchids are not flowers that you can just spot on the side of the road, growing wherever all willy-nilly. They are found in more isolated places, such as high in the mountains or even in trees. The conditions needed for them to grow are very specific from species to species, so you aren't going to just find one on the side of the road or in a field.
On a more cultural level, orchids have a deep meaning and significance in Chinese culture. They are said to symbolize feminine beauty, modesty, and refinement. Many varieties of the flower are highly prized. Confucius even highly praised the flower. Orchids have been used to compared the careers of scholars under a just emperor.
Lan 蘭 (orchid) is also a very popular character used in the names for girls. For all of this said, I do not understand why Zilan hates her name so much.
Now credit where credit is due, I like that the author used traditional Chinese characters in this book instead of simplified ones. Simplified characters were not in use until only the mid-1950s.
Next is Wenshu 文書. Wen 文 is a character commonly used in names meaning literary/writing/culture/language, so we are fine there. Shu 書(书) on the other hand means book. I can see where the author was coming from, trying to give him a scholar-y name, but Shu 書(书) just isn't used for names and looks weird.
Zilan 紫蘭(兰).... I have a lot to say about this one. Zilan is not actually a bad name. There is a famous Chinese artist, Guan Zilan (關紫蘭), with the name. I didn't know about her until I tried looking up (in both English and Chinese) what a zilan flower looked like, and she was one of the top results when you looked up the name in pinyin.
In the book, zilan is said to be a common flower that you see on the side of the road. This immediately made me pause and question if zilan was the name of an actual flower or not in Chinese. The answer that I found was no. It's quite literally just an orchid that is purple.
I honestly question if the author knows what an orchid is. Orchids are not flowers that you can just spot on the side of the road, growing wherever all willy-nilly. They are found in more isolated places, such as high in the mountains or even in trees. The conditions needed for them to grow are very specific from species to species, so you aren't going to just find one on the side of the road or in a field.
On a more cultural level, orchids have a deep meaning and significance in Chinese culture. They are said to symbolize feminine beauty, modesty, and refinement. Many varieties of the flower are highly prized. Confucius even highly praised the flower. Orchids have been used to compared the careers of scholars under a just emperor.
Lan 蘭 (orchid) is also a very popular character used in the names for girls. For all of this said, I do not understand why Zilan hates her name so much.
Now credit where credit is due, I like that the author used traditional Chinese characters in this book instead of simplified ones. Simplified characters were not in use until only the mid-1950s.
- In a modern context, the use of Xiaojie 小姐 would be correct (except in Northern China, where it is a slang word for prostitute). However, in a historical setting, Xiaojie 小姐 is a term used more for noblewomen and those with high standings. The term for "Miss" would be Guniang 姑娘 in a historical setting.
- People never EVER should be referred to by their first names unless they are close friends or family. It is extremely disrespectful to do so otherwise. So many times in this book Zilan is referred to as "Zilan Xiaojie". So she's being disrespected, yet being evaluated at the same time? Zilan should either be referred to by her full name, Fan Zilan, or as Fan-guniang. After becoming
Li Hong's "concubine", people should have started calling her Concubine Fan or Consort Fan. Probably the latter as the rank is higher and she's Li Hong's only "concubine". - Concubines. Oh my GOD I do not know where the author got her mindset for this one. Literally watch any historical Chinese drama involving the harem and you will get a better idea of what a concubine is, does all day, and is treated way more accurately than this book shows it as. And the dramas are, well, dramatic! compared to what it was like in reality.
A concubine was also given eunuchs (not regular guards) to guard them from other men, since they don't have a certain body part down below, so that nobody but the emperor/lord/etc. can impregnate them. Whenever the man did lie with his wife or concubine, it would have been recorded in a document. This way they can make sure that the child is indeed his. There were also some blood tests if there was any doubt, but modern science can disprove their accuracy.
- The men in this book. Every single one of them, besides the ones we are supposed to like, are absolutely terrible. I will be going more detail about that once I get to the actual plot of the book.
Anyways, the men in this book, or just everyone in general, are WAY too hands on. The amount of unnecessary touching is just bizarre. Touching anyone you aren't familiar with can be seen as rude.
At one point, some rando tried to lean in and kiss Yanfei on the cheek IN BOARD DAYLIGHT. Were there creeps back then? Yeah, of course, there are creeps everywhere during any time, but now you have to take the culture into context. Touching a women, even just on the shoulder, would have gotten you some nasty looks. It would be so flirtatious. Now a kiss? That had me gasping at how utterly bizarre and not ok that was. Bizarre because no one would have actually done that somewhere where everyone could see because it was such a big societal no-no. Keeping face, or your reputation, was very important both back then and now. Yanfei acted like it was an everyday occurrence. I honestly want to know what the author thought every day life was like for a woman and what men were like.
At one point, some rando tried to lean in and kiss Yanfei on the cheek IN BOARD DAYLIGHT. Were there creeps back then? Yeah, of course, there are creeps everywhere during any time, but now you have to take the culture into context. Touching a women, even just on the shoulder, would have gotten you some nasty looks. It would be so flirtatious. Now a kiss? That had me gasping at how utterly bizarre and not ok that was. Bizarre because no one would have actually done that somewhere where everyone could see because it was such a big societal no-no. Keeping face, or your reputation, was very important both back then and now. Yanfei acted like it was an everyday occurrence. I honestly want to know what the author thought every day life was like for a woman and what men were like.
Li Hong offers Zilan a ring. An innocent gesture. Expect for the fact that it was low-key a marriage proposal. As soon as he brought is out, I thought to myself "there is no way that the author would be so careless as to have this be a romantic, marriage-like gesture, right?". Yep, it was. This is such a western/modern practice. It could have been a pure coincidence that she chose to use a ring for this scene, but it definitely stood out to me.
- Not Chinese related, but this one had me doing a double take to make sure that I really did just read what I read.
At the beginning, it was said that Zilan and Wenshu were able to translate her father's journals. The text was written in Gaelic, and how did they figure out how to translate it? By knowing a little bit of the Slavic languages used on the silk road because Gaelic has its roots in Slavic....
Excuse me, WHAT???? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Their nearest common ancestor is Proto-Indo-European itself and that's their only relation. There is no way that they would have been able to read Gaelic by knowing, even fluently, any Slavic language. Which also isn't to mention that many Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Latin one, and even then, Gaelic languages used a variant of Latin. Similar, but not exact to what we use. It would be like saying you could figure out how to read Polish because you know a bit of French. It does not make sense.
I'm going to give Wu Zetian her own section.... I know the historical note at the beginning says that changes have been made, since it is speculative fiction, but there are some decisions that I don't understand, or maybe the author unconsciously made these choices without looking at the actual history for guidance.
Excuse me, WHAT???? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Their nearest common ancestor is Proto-Indo-European itself and that's their only relation. There is no way that they would have been able to read Gaelic by knowing, even fluently, any Slavic language. Which also isn't to mention that many Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Latin one, and even then, Gaelic languages used a variant of Latin. Similar, but not exact to what we use. It would be like saying you could figure out how to read Polish because you know a bit of French. It does not make sense.
I'm going to give Wu Zetian her own section.... I know the historical note at the beginning says that changes have been made, since it is speculative fiction, but there are some decisions that I don't understand, or maybe the author unconsciously made these choices without looking at the actual history for guidance.
- Credit where credit is due though. I liked the mention of
the rumor that she chopped up her rival concubines and placed their bodies into wine jars. That was a rumor that exactly existed. Same with the mention that she killed her own baby and placed the blame on the previous Empress, the Emperor falling ill, killing her sons in order to gain power, and poisoning Li Hong. There were probably some others, but those were the ones that I can remember off of the top of my head at the moment.
Now my first question is, why is she called Wu Zetian in the book? The story to supposed to take place before she became emperor, (Yes emperor, the Chinese words for emperor and empress are not gendered terms like they are in English, but rather a name of a position), so why is she called Wu Zetian?
Wu Zetian is the name that she gives herself after ascending to the throne. Before that, her name was Wu Zhao. She should have been referred to as Empress Wu in this book.
If the Emperor has been ill for 100 years, and Li Hong has only been eating life gold for about a year, does that mean that Wu Zetian had s*x with the emperor while he was bedridden? And multiple times considering that she gave birth to multiple children, and the children from the other concubines as well?
Li Hong's sisters, the children of Consort Xiao, were much older than Li Hong in history, while in this book they are very young. The two sisters were born before Wu Zhao became empress. So were they being given life gold this entire time so that they could stay young? But why? Why would Wu Zetian keep them alive for that long?
I feel like a lot of these problems would have been fixed if this time skip didn't happen. But without the time skip, other parts of this world, like alchemy being a part of people's lives, wouldn't make sense. I feel like there should have been more care and research put into this point before writing the plot and details of this story. With 100 years of time,why hasn't Empress Wu taken the throne yet? Why wait this long?
The story might have been more interesting if the ML wasn't Li Hong at all, but rather his younger brother Li Xian, Empress Wu's 3rd son, also known as Emperor Zhongzong. During his first reign, he pretty much had no power at all and Empress Wu made all of the decisions. Making him basically just a puppet. Eventually she just exiled him and named herself Emperor Wu Zetian.
The story could have started with Li Xian being the one to approach Zilan, and eventually over time she helped him gain his confidence and self-esteem, and then they over through Wu Zetian, placing Li Xian back on the throne. That could have been interesting and fixed some of these plotholes.
In terms of actual history, during Wu Zetian's reign, the standards of living were high, economy stable, and people were very content with her rule. She took many suggestions from the public, and offered relief to the lower class in many ways.
You can debate whether or not she was a good person, but it's hard to deny that she was a good ruler. Her name was often tarnished throughout history because of misogyny. Some claims are probably valid, while others maybe aren't. We will never truly know what the real Wu Zetian was like.
The author could have been going forWu Zetian was the tyrannical person that ancient historians claim her to be, while the Yanfei Wu Zetian is her more generous leader side. But who knows because at this point I have lost faith in the amount of research that the author actually put into this.
At the end of the book, she listed a works cited, which honestly shocked me. It almost gives me the feeling of when you're in school and the teacher requires you to have at least X-number of sources, so you just look up stuff up to meet the requirement even if you didn't exactly read or use that source. If she did use all these sources for her research, it clearly either wasn't enough, or she didn't take the information in very well. There was also just a lot of information that she missed because if looked like she didn't even research them in the first place.
So many of these things could have been avoided. If you are writing any historical work, you need to ask yourself a TON of questions throughout the process. No matter how small or stupid you think they are. Like, "Did tomatoes exist in Spain? In not, when were they imported?". Either way, you will learn a lot of new things!!
Ok, let's FINALLY talk about the plot and characters of this book...
Pretty much none of the character in this book are lovable except maybe Li Hong. Li Hong is this cinnamon roll-like character, but maybe one made with too much sugar so you don't really want to eat it.
Zilan is the embodiment of anger and self-hatred. She's pretty much annoyed at someone at any given moment of the story, and wallows in her own self-pity. She is also very violent, instinctively thinking that she needs to harm or kill people when they became an inconvenience.
Yanfei's entire personality is "I hate men", and Wenshu is just kinda there? Is he supposed to be the calm one between these two overly angry girls? Props to him for putting up with it his whole life.
Wu Zetian herself is literallyjust pure evil, with no undertones or flavor to her character. One of the charming things about Chinese media is that the villains, especially the females ones, are cunning, charming, always scheming, and have the perfect front but hold a dagger behind their back. But Wu Zetian kinda just has her evil front up the entire time, which makes her a bland character in my opinion.
We don't get to know any of the royal alchemists, besides maybe the Moon Alchemist, but even then we don't get to really know her that much.Were we supposed to care and feel something when they all died? Cause I didn't feel or believe the connection and emotion that Zilan was feeling. It would have been really nice to see what life as a royal alchemist was like, but we got maybe two short scenes surrounding it? The relationship between all these characters were never really developed in the slightest.
There was too much death in this novel. And I don't mean that death is bad, but there was so much of it that when someone died it was like, "Oh, that person died? RIP I guess. Seen it before, let's move on."And why were SO many people resurrected? What's the point of killing off a character if you're just going to bring them back? If it was one character, then cool, no problem, but it happened five times. Zilan once, and her cousins twice. Twice! Maybe even six times if you count Zilan half-dying at the end and pulling herself together.
Which I also thought that the twist of Zilan being undead this entire time was stupid. Why did she have to die in the first place? Why couldn't she just be a normal human with talent? Her parents die/leave for normal reasons? Like maybe her mom got sick, and her dad went to go look for a cure but never came back. With all this death and resurrection, it really desensitizes the meaning and importance behind death in the first place.
Now the men in this book... I briefly talked about it above, but my GOD it was so bad in this book. Every single man in this book, besides Li Hong and Wenshu, are absolutely terrible people. I seriously got the feeling that the author just hates men and believes that they are all perverts, brutes, and misogynistic. Seriously, pretty much all of them either made a sexual comment, sexual touch, or were straight up violent. A bunch of men literallyripped off Zilan's clothing while she was in a cage for no reason!!
And the amount of times men commented on buying Yanfei. Was that seriously necessary? Yeah, arranged marriage was a thing back then, but it wasn't some kind of "Mmm *slurp* yummy woman, come be my wife so I can do delicious things to you kekeke." The parents would have to approve of the pairing, a dowry (which wasn't just money) would have to be paid to prove that the man/man's family was serious about the marraige, and if the family had the money, they would hire a matchmaker to read if the pairing would work or not and to then choose an auspicious date for the wedding. There was a lot more to it then just "*grunt grunt* pretty woman buy." The way it was depicted in this book was just gross.
Also, what the heck was with Zilan and Li Hong's relationship?The entire time Zilan made it very clear that she was just barely tolerating Li Hong. But then out of no where, she freaking kisses him? HUH??? Where on earth did that even come from??? And then they almost have s*x??? When did her feeling for Li Hong change? When did they become romantic? It was almost as if the author was like "Oh wait. That's right. So many books in this genre have a romantic subplot. Welp, guess they love each other now." Why, just, why. I'm fine with romance, but it came out of literally nowhere and I do not understand.
The ending of this book was SO stupid.Everyone dies, and in her state of panic, instead of, you know, reviving the person who LITERALLY JUST DIED, who was supposedly the person whom she LOVED, nah, let's bring back Yanfei into the empress's body. Huh? Excuse me? Why is that your first reaction? Shouldn't she have brought Li Hong back into his own body first? And THEN maybe try to bring Yanfei back into Wu Zetian's body? And it's not that hard to find a body for Wenshu after that if she was so determined! Tons of servants die all the time. Maybe one of the alchemist bodies were still usable. Hell, go out and dig up a commoners grave. It's a big city, there's gotta be a fresh corpse somewhere.
I don't understand. It just makes me even more confused on what Zilan's feelings towards Li Hong even are.
I'm tired, I'm done writing this rant review. This book was a train wreck. Unfortunately I have the habit of continuing to read these kinds of things instead of DNFing just to see what kind of glorious explosion is going to happen in the end. I will be reading the sequel when it comes out.
Wu Zetian is the name that she gives herself after ascending to the throne. Before that, her name was Wu Zhao. She should have been referred to as Empress Wu in this book.
If the Emperor has been ill for 100 years, and Li Hong has only been eating life gold for about a year, does that mean that Wu Zetian had s*x with the emperor while he was bedridden? And multiple times considering that she gave birth to multiple children, and the children from the other concubines as well?
Li Hong's sisters, the children of Consort Xiao, were much older than Li Hong in history, while in this book they are very young. The two sisters were born before Wu Zhao became empress. So were they being given life gold this entire time so that they could stay young? But why? Why would Wu Zetian keep them alive for that long?
I feel like a lot of these problems would have been fixed if this time skip didn't happen. But without the time skip, other parts of this world, like alchemy being a part of people's lives, wouldn't make sense. I feel like there should have been more care and research put into this point before writing the plot and details of this story. With 100 years of time,
The story might have been more interesting if the ML wasn't Li Hong at all, but rather his younger brother Li Xian, Empress Wu's 3rd son, also known as Emperor Zhongzong. During his first reign, he pretty much had no power at all and Empress Wu made all of the decisions. Making him basically just a puppet. Eventually she just exiled him and named herself Emperor Wu Zetian.
The story could have started with Li Xian being the one to approach Zilan, and eventually over time she helped him gain his confidence and self-esteem, and then they over through Wu Zetian, placing Li Xian back on the throne. That could have been interesting and fixed some of these plotholes.
In terms of actual history, during Wu Zetian's reign, the standards of living were high, economy stable, and people were very content with her rule. She took many suggestions from the public, and offered relief to the lower class in many ways.
You can debate whether or not she was a good person, but it's hard to deny that she was a good ruler. Her name was often tarnished throughout history because of misogyny. Some claims are probably valid, while others maybe aren't. We will never truly know what the real Wu Zetian was like.
The author could have been going for
At the end of the book, she listed a works cited, which honestly shocked me. It almost gives me the feeling of when you're in school and the teacher requires you to have at least X-number of sources, so you just look up stuff up to meet the requirement even if you didn't exactly read or use that source. If she did use all these sources for her research, it clearly either wasn't enough, or she didn't take the information in very well. There was also just a lot of information that she missed because if looked like she didn't even research them in the first place.
So many of these things could have been avoided. If you are writing any historical work, you need to ask yourself a TON of questions throughout the process. No matter how small or stupid you think they are. Like, "Did tomatoes exist in Spain? In not, when were they imported?". Either way, you will learn a lot of new things!!
Ok, let's FINALLY talk about the plot and characters of this book...
Pretty much none of the character in this book are lovable except maybe Li Hong. Li Hong is this cinnamon roll-like character, but maybe one made with too much sugar so you don't really want to eat it.
Zilan is the embodiment of anger and self-hatred. She's pretty much annoyed at someone at any given moment of the story, and wallows in her own self-pity. She is also very violent, instinctively thinking that she needs to harm or kill people when they became an inconvenience.
Yanfei's entire personality is "I hate men", and Wenshu is just kinda there? Is he supposed to be the calm one between these two overly angry girls? Props to him for putting up with it his whole life.
Wu Zetian herself is literally
We don't get to know any of the royal alchemists, besides maybe the Moon Alchemist, but even then we don't get to really know her that much.
There was too much death in this novel. And I don't mean that death is bad, but there was so much of it that when someone died it was like, "Oh, that person died? RIP I guess. Seen it before, let's move on."
Which I also thought that the twist of Zilan being undead this entire time was stupid. Why did she have to die in the first place? Why couldn't she just be a normal human with talent? Her parents die/leave for normal reasons? Like maybe her mom got sick, and her dad went to go look for a cure but never came back. With all this death and resurrection, it really desensitizes the meaning and importance behind death in the first place.
Now the men in this book... I briefly talked about it above, but my GOD it was so bad in this book. Every single man in this book, besides Li Hong and Wenshu, are absolutely terrible people. I seriously got the feeling that the author just hates men and believes that they are all perverts, brutes, and misogynistic. Seriously, pretty much all of them either made a sexual comment, sexual touch, or were straight up violent. A bunch of men literally
And the amount of times men commented on buying Yanfei. Was that seriously necessary? Yeah, arranged marriage was a thing back then, but it wasn't some kind of "Mmm *slurp* yummy woman, come be my wife so I can do delicious things to you kekeke." The parents would have to approve of the pairing, a dowry (which wasn't just money) would have to be paid to prove that the man/man's family was serious about the marraige, and if the family had the money, they would hire a matchmaker to read if the pairing would work or not and to then choose an auspicious date for the wedding. There was a lot more to it then just "*grunt grunt* pretty woman buy." The way it was depicted in this book was just gross.
Also, what the heck was with Zilan and Li Hong's relationship?
The ending of this book was SO stupid.
I don't understand. It just makes me even more confused on what Zilan's feelings towards Li Hong even are.
I'm tired, I'm done writing this rant review. This book was a train wreck. Unfortunately I have the habit of continuing to read these kinds of things instead of DNFing just to see what kind of glorious explosion is going to happen in the end. I will be reading the sequel when it comes out.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Body horror, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Child death, Racial slurs, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexism, Incest, and Misogyny
emilysreadingbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Zilan is an orphan living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in the southern region of China in an alternate history where Chinese alchemists were successful in finding an elixir of immortality.
Only the rich have access, and while they don’t age, they can die through other means.
Zilan is an alchemist, and she and her cousins, Wenshu and Yufei, perform illegal life alchemy that brings the recently deceased back to life to earn the money they need for their family to survive.
Their dream is to move to the capital, Chang’an, for Zilan to become a royal alchemist, and her cousins to become civil servants; but to become a royal alchemist, Zilan has to pass the entrance exams, and the odds seemed stacked against her.
Can she pass, when it seems like almost everyone is against her? And is being a royal alchemist really everything she thought it would be?
This book was amazing! The plot is creative, and the twists are so well done. I was hooked from the first chapter, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Racial slurs, Body horror, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Animal death, Classism, Death, Gore, Murder, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, and Kidnapping
Minor: Physical abuse and Pandemic/Epidemic
luckylulureads's review
challenging
dark
funny
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Death, Vomit, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Racial slurs and Xenophobia
Minor: Death of parent and Cannibalism
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