Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Bitter Medicine

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

dmrosenblatt's review

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

4.25

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kcopp's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.0

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halem13's review

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emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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renpuspita's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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? Yes

3.25

Bitter Medicine is a book, that for me, difficult to review. It's so rare nowadays with the surge of fantasy romance/romantasy (semantics) book, to find a paranormal slash urban fantasy romance that didn't happen in the lalala-land or unpronounceable land with many fancy characters name. Bitter Medicine happen in modern world, sets in Raleigh, North Carolina, Paris and Strasbourgh, France. Sadly, when starting read this book, I faced with an already established world building. There's no explanation or maybe some description. I have this feeling that Tsai maybe afraid to info-dumping the world building, but I wish she did. I don't mind with a long description about the world building if that mean I can understand what's going on.

I don't have a slightest idea what is the rules of the world that the characters lived in. Yes, our heroine, Elle Mei or Yiya Jiang is a descendant of Shennong, a Chinese god of medicine. She is a healer but also very powerful with her glyph-making ability and pyrokinetics. Luc Villois, the hero is half elf and also a French, an ace for the Bureau or agency called Roland and Riddle. The big question is, what is Roland and Riddle did actually? An agency for what? To avoid any supernatural disaster or to save human from supernatural alike? I don't even sure if human and supernatural in this book world live in harmony until page 200-ish in which Elle must avoid to attract human attention to herself, so basically the human didn't have any idea that these supernatural beings exist? What is the Fixer? Why the Wrecking Crew called Wrecking Crew and they all just act like asshole toward Luc, bordering envy and jealousy? Who is Oberon, aside than he's the leader of Roland and Riddle? I have so many questions and sadly some of them go unanswered.

While the lack of explanation of world building is the weakness, I think Tsai excels in writing the romance. I did like reading the romance between Luc and Elle. It's tropey af and all of them are my catnips, such as platonic friend to lover, he feel first and she feel harder, found family, etc etc. The romance aspect is the saving grace for Bitter Medicine. Remove the romance and I will DNF'd the book in the first place because a weak world building since this book is marketed first as xianxia-inspired fantasy. My physical copy of this book is filled with sticky notes marked the feeling from both characters. Especially Luc. I think Tsai write him best compared to Elle. Luc is the definition of torture hero but minus the "I'm really not worthy of you" hyperbole woes. Reading his feeling toward Elle is one of the highlight of this book and I often go "awww". Luc also a green flag man walking and Elle is a lucky woman to be loved by him. I liked that this book was written in omniscient 3rd PoV, switched between Luc and Elle, provide insights to both characters. This book is also not YA, since both Elle and Luc are immortal and already in their hundreds age give and take, so there's some sex scenes and it's so..steamy. Well written tho, without being gratuitous. Yeah, there are some purple prose, but in my defense, not that make-me-rolling-my-eyes kind of purple prose and successfully describe both Elle and Luc's feelings. I also like that it's consensual and they practice safe sex, lol.

I think one of the star of Bitter Medicine is Elle's brother, Tony. He's so unapologetic and often become a voice of reason, especially when Elle is stubborn because of familial duty. Sigh, I really want a brother like Tony, since I'm a firstborn myself. Elle herself is okay, although at first she can be a little bit infuriating to read by being middle child so she always try to play peacemaker and always blamed herself with what happen between her brothers. I also annoyed and angry with the way Elle's parents threat her. They are just your typical Asian (or in this case Chinese) parents that prefer the boys rather than the girl. So I'm happy that Elle finally stand up to herself and like Tony suggest, being selfish and pursue her own happiness.

I feel that Bitter Medicine is like a two books that compressed into one book and the publisher try to make it as a stand alone. The problem with Elle's murderous brother, Yiwu, are done in 65% mark or so, make the following chapter feel anti-climatic although focusing more to both Elle and Luc's relationship. Then, there's a problem between Luc and Oberon that pretty much have this "Devil Wears Prada" vibes. I think maybe Tsai try to incorporated about work-life balance with the way Oberon always pushed Luc to the limit with his outrageous demands and abuse of power. However, the end left me feel unsatisfied with

how easy Oberon get away and didn't get his comeuppance after abusing Luc's true name for I don't know how many times. Oberon really is a boss from hell, manipulator expert and gaslighting aficionado that I really hope, he at least got his demise or maybe death is too merciful for the like of him.

I'm curious if there's will be more story for Luc and Elle, despite they already got their HEA.

Bitter Medicine have a rough start, feels like a debut book that suffering from glaring weakness regarding the world building and unclear explanation about some of the characters. But the romance part is worth to read. It's also have some actions scene that I guess inspired by C-drama despite I never watch one myself, but I can clearly pictured the scene unfold with the way Tsai write it. It's also contain dialogue in Chinese and French and Tsai also explain why she write them at it is and I really don't mind since I can google the translation myself. If you like your paranormal romance cater more to romance rather than its fantasy/supernatural setting, try to read this one.

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relin's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional

5.0

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grets_reads's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

Ooohhhh this one was good!!! Magical realism, romance, a bit of action, and some wonderfully written and diverse multilingual characters.

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ramunepocky's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

this review is not spoiler free

I enjoyed Bitter Medicine a lot. It had a very interesting concept, characters and world-building. It broke my heart learning about the pasts of the main characters and seeing what happened to them as the story progressed, and how things spun out of control. I think there was a lull about 2/3 of the way through where the pace slowed right down after the main event of the story had been “resolved”, which was jarring at first, but the last 100 pages were definitely needed and was very important for the character’s developments. There was also a lot of casual rep – including a bi main character, a gay main side character, a nonbinary side character, and a polycule - that was mentioned without making a big deal out of it and I really loved that.

I liked the main character, Elle, a lot. She had sacrificed so much to keep her brother safe and she didn’t allow herself to have anything she wanted in fear that it would endanger him. It’s sad that her allowing herself to get close to Luc and confiding in him is exactly what did end up endangering her brother, and it was so sad when they essentially swapped places after she gave up her magic to save Tony and he became an immortal again as she became mortal herself. It was hard to read about her struggling to come to terms with being magicless, pushing people away and wishing that she had just died, but it was nice to see her find her peace again and let people get close.

I don’t think I had a specific favourite character in this book, but I did like the other main character, Luc, also. His past was absolutely heartbreaking and it was awful seeing the difference between him around Elle, where he was allowed to be himself and softer, and him at work, where he had to shut his emotions off to protect himself. It was awful the way that his coworkers treat him based off what they thought they knew about him, but I’m glad that they resolved it in the end, and that they all apologised to him after learning that he was being forced to do things by the boss. I like to believe that they all became close friends in the end, as Luc definitely deserved some friends and some people in his corner. It was also heartbreaking the extreme lengths he had to go to, and the way he had to risk his life, to be able to actually quit his job and his boss no longer have any power over him. I hope him and Elle are living happily as mortals somewhere.

I really liked the majority of the characters and I felt like even the more minor characters still felt well-rounded and weren’t two dimensional. I feel like the antagonist of the story was definitely Luc’s boss, he was cruel and his actions were absolutely despicable, especially the way he would constantly invoke the right if Luc said no and force him to do things he didn’t want to do regardless. It was heartbreaking to think that Luc had been trapped in that situation for 250 years, without a single person in his corner, and only the sphinx knowing the truth of what he’d done for the children and why he was forced to do whatever he was asked. I absolutely despised his boss and, though I don’t remember anything negative happening to him in the story itself, I truly hope that karma fucks him over in the end.

The world-building was so interesting to me. I really liked learning about the way that Elle used her magic and the ink sigils that she created for the agents. It was also interesting to learn about their (I cant remember the specific word used) but life tethers essentially. Especially when not only one, but three characters had been/got severed from theirs.

The plot was very interesting and had me hooked. I liked the gradual trust that developed between Elle and Luc as they both allowed themselves to have something that they wanted. It was nice to see them slowly open up about things and trust the other – even if Luc had a big giant thing stopping him from being able to confide specific truths. I also liked that even when Tony recognised Luc and tried to expose what he thought Luc had done, Elle still trusted him and found out what had truly happened.

Overall, it was an interesting book and I will definitely read something else by this author again.

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