Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
I think there IS a target audience for this book, it’s just not me (and that’s okay). I’m not much of a smut/spice seeker and when I requested this book I wasn’t expecting A LOT of spice. It took me a minute to get my bearings and Justinian’s style of (beautiful) writing and the format of the book. I even had to use the dictionary a few times which is rare for me! Once I did, I enjoyed the story for the most part. I think my biggest issue that was always in the back of my mind was the way that this is being marketed as a Romantasy, with the prognosis hardly mentioning erotica, smut, spice at all. Some of the fellow author review quotes mention it, thankfully. This definitely erotic fantasy with some romance (but mostly lust). I don’t think it’s fair to the reader to not lead with how sexual the book is. I know the author has been joking on IG about this and There’s NOTHING wrong with how sexual the book is; I just think it needs to be obvious from the start so folks know what they’re getting into. I think this stands for all authors when you’re bordering the line of erotica (and this is far past that line).
So 4 stars for a great story, amazing writing especially for a debut novel, but lack of a star for being mislead. I will definitely keep an eye on this author and would read more of his writing if it was less erotica and more romance and if he never writes that kind of book, that’s okay (you do you, boo!) Wish him lots of success as a queer Asian author.
So 4 stars for a great story, amazing writing especially for a debut novel, but lack of a star for being mislead. I will definitely keep an eye on this author and would read more of his writing if it was less erotica and more romance and if he never writes that kind of book, that’s okay (you do you, boo!) Wish him lots of success as a queer Asian author.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Mixed reviews of this book aside. This book is absolutely fantastic. Something that leaves you thinking down to the very last page wity many callbacks and vivid attention to detail.
There's plenty to be interpreted from this story on how to feel about it, but overall it's an insanely interesting read.
This is definitely one of those books I'll be thinking about for awhile because WOW what a take on such a fun concept ~
There's plenty to be interpreted from this story on how to feel about it, but overall it's an insanely interesting read.
This is definitely one of those books I'll be thinking about for awhile because WOW what a take on such a fun concept ~
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
💙 Soulmates
💙 Multiple Timelines
💙 No HEA
3/5 🌟
5/5 🌶
I'm still a little lost, and not sure I know what happened. Even through I nearly DNFed very early, my interest was piqued and I found myself invested and trying to untie the knots.
This is about as explicit as it gets with scenes spanning lifetimes and multiple stories worth of spice. Very little is left out.
💙 Multiple Timelines
💙 No HEA
3/5 🌟
5/5 🌶
I'm still a little lost, and not sure I know what happened. Even through I nearly DNFed very early, my interest was piqued and I found myself invested and trying to untie the knots.
This is about as explicit as it gets with scenes spanning lifetimes and multiple stories worth of spice. Very little is left out.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship
A Magical Journey Through an Enchanting World
"The Emperor and the Endless Palace" is a captivating tale that transports readers into a magical realm filled with wonder, intrigue, and adventure. This book is perfect for those who enjoy getting lost in a richly imagined world where every corner hides a new surprise.
The story follows a young emperor who inherits a mysterious palace with countless rooms, each holding its own secrets and challenges. As he explores the palace, he encounters magical creatures, hidden dangers, and puzzles that test his courage and wit. The narrative is engaging and fast-paced, making it hard to put down.
One of the standout features of this book is its vivid descriptions. The author paints a detailed picture of the endless palace, making readers feel like they are right there alongside the emperor, discovering its marvels and mysteries. The world-building is exceptional, creating a setting that is both enchanting and believable.
The characters are well-developed and relatable. The young emperor is a compelling protagonist, showing growth and resilience as he navigates his new responsibilities and the challenges of the palace. The supporting characters add depth to the story, each bringing their own unique perspectives and skills.
While the book is filled with fantasy elements, it also touches on themes of bravery, self-discovery, and the importance of friendship. These universal themes make the story resonate with readers of all ages.
Overall, "The Emperor and the Endless Palace" is a delightful read that offers a perfect escape into a fantastical world. It’s a book that will appeal to anyone who loves adventure, magic, and a well-told story.
---
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a magical and heartwarming adventure!
"The Emperor and the Endless Palace" is a captivating tale that transports readers into a magical realm filled with wonder, intrigue, and adventure. This book is perfect for those who enjoy getting lost in a richly imagined world where every corner hides a new surprise.
The story follows a young emperor who inherits a mysterious palace with countless rooms, each holding its own secrets and challenges. As he explores the palace, he encounters magical creatures, hidden dangers, and puzzles that test his courage and wit. The narrative is engaging and fast-paced, making it hard to put down.
One of the standout features of this book is its vivid descriptions. The author paints a detailed picture of the endless palace, making readers feel like they are right there alongside the emperor, discovering its marvels and mysteries. The world-building is exceptional, creating a setting that is both enchanting and believable.
The characters are well-developed and relatable. The young emperor is a compelling protagonist, showing growth and resilience as he navigates his new responsibilities and the challenges of the palace. The supporting characters add depth to the story, each bringing their own unique perspectives and skills.
While the book is filled with fantasy elements, it also touches on themes of bravery, self-discovery, and the importance of friendship. These universal themes make the story resonate with readers of all ages.
Overall, "The Emperor and the Endless Palace" is a delightful read that offers a perfect escape into a fantastical world. It’s a book that will appeal to anyone who loves adventure, magic, and a well-told story.
---
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a magical and heartwarming adventure!
Content warning: this book has a lot of sexual scenes and a decent amount of drug use and there are a ton of consent issues surrounding both of those things, though not every scene is non-consensual. The sex scenes are all vague, non-explicit R-rated content rather than graphic X-rated content, but they're still a major part of the book so I'll be discussing them in this review. Read on at your own risk.
This was a strange novel. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but at the same time I couldn't put it down. The story - or more accurately, stories - were so bizarre that I wanted to see what happened. Having now come to the conclusion of it all, I can't say that this was a satisfying read. I found the ending pretty upsetting for a reason that's a major spoiler. That ending is the main reason this is getting two stars instead of three, but since it's such a massive spoiler I'll save it for the end. For now, I'll focus on the story's main content and why I rated it at three stars.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace is made up of three stories told in a rotating fashion. Story one takes place around 1751, story two takes place around 4 BCE, and story three takes place in the modern era. The novel rotates between those three stories in a repeating pattern with every third chapter returning you to the same story. The connection between the stories is rather vague. You can quickly guess that these are the same characters meeting in different lives, but who is who can be hard to follow. Some lives even see new characters that only exist for that life. Explicit reveals of who is who happen, but they're saved until pretty late in the book. Even with the explicit reveals, I found it hard to remember which character was which due to the constantly changing names and contexts as each life the characters live is wildly different from the last.
If I'd loved the three stories, then this confusion might have been a selling feature as the stories do mostly stand alone and each one has it's own unique reveals, meaning that there's a high re-read value once you know how each story ends even if you aren't sure who was who. However while the settings were interesting and pacing was excellent, I can't say that any of the stories won my heart. I was mostly just reading out of bewilderment to see where all of this was going. Having now reached the destination, I'm not sure if it was worth the ride. It's definitely not worth the ride if you like happy and uplifting endings or want positive messages in your stories.
The general plots of the three stories are as follows:
1751: a young man named He Shican has a homosexual encounter of dubious consent with another young man. When his father finds out, He Shican is disinherited even though he's the older son. This leads He Shican to go off into the world to try to make his own way. He ends up setting up an inn in a remote forest where he lives happily until a young man named Jiulang shows up with a sick old woman in tow. This begins a series of events that unravel He Shican's quiet life forever
4 BCE: a young man named Dong Xian serves as a lowly clerk in the emperor's palace. Through a strange series of events, Dong Xian is brought before the emperor's grandmother who has decided to use Dong Xian in one of her many schemes to control her grandson the emperor Liu Xin. This latest plot sees her charging Dong Xian to seduce Liu Xin. Will Dong Xian succeed or will he lose everything as he's drawn into a deadly game involving the most powerful people in the empire? While all of the stories are pretty sexual, this was the most sexual of the three stories and a lot of it is deeply uncomfortable due to constant consent issues and the weird euphemisms Dong Xian uses. I think this was an attempt to root the novel in its chosen setting, but I cannot think of a less enticing word for an erection than "influence." I think I pulled an "ew" face every time it was used and it will be a while before I hear that word without this book haunting me.
Present day: a young man named River goes to a circuit party - basically a gay rave - with his latest hookup. While there, River meets Joey, a mysterious young man visiting from China. River finds himself inexplicably drawn to Joey, which is a problem because Joey is dating(?) Winston Chow, an insanely possessive billionaire who considers Joey his. River's connection to Joey is further complicated as River starts to realize that he and Joey have a connection that somehow began long before their first meeting.
The plots of these three stories might lead you to think that this is a romance, but it's not. At least, it's not the kind of story you expect when you hear the word "romance." You could maybe call this a dark romance, but even that feels like a stretch as nothing about this is romantic. The lead characters' bond seems to be based on nothing more than lust and a vague mystical connection that draws them together even though they're toxic influences in each other's lives. If there was romantic love at work here, then it flew right over my head. Even if I had bought the romance, I'd still say that this is more a story about messy humanity than a story about love which leads up to my spoiler for the ending as that's what everything builds to and I hated it.
The 1751 story is where we learn some vague details of what happened next. Liu Xin's reincarnation reveals that when he died, he was given the chance to enter heaven, but refused it because he knew that Dong Xian slept with his cousin. Instead of going to peace in heaven, Liu Xin retruned to earth instead so that he could find Dong Xian's reincarnations and get revenge on him for his "betrayal." Talk about victim blaming!!! The scene between Dong Xian and the cousin was not written like a cheating scene! The two characters never even got along! The cousin was always portrayed as someone Dong Xian feared! I was horrified that this book labeled their encounter as something other than rape. A fact that's extra true because Dong Xian's story featured a lot of questionable sexual encounters which heightened his victim status for me. This final assault just felt like the icing on a shit cake of people using him. I didn't love his character, but I did feel deeply sorry for him.
This victim blaming mess could have been saved if there was a moment where Liu Xin learned the truth of what happened and absolved Dong Xian, bringing them both peace, but that's not what the story gives us. Both Liu Xin and Dong Xian's reincarnations treat it as cheating whenever they remember what happened. This is painted as a story where Dong Xian is eternally trying to make up for his "betrayal." By the end of the tale, he still hasn't freed them and the implication is that he will go on blaming himself and trying to make things right for all of time.
Between the consent issues, the lack of romance, and the messed up ending, I can't recommend this one. It was a unique story and the pacing was great, but those are the only real positive things I can say about this one. I honestly debated giving it one star because of the ending, but decided to go with two because I was engaged by the novel from start to finish and I guess that deserves something?
This was a strange novel. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but at the same time I couldn't put it down. The story - or more accurately, stories - were so bizarre that I wanted to see what happened. Having now come to the conclusion of it all, I can't say that this was a satisfying read. I found the ending pretty upsetting for a reason that's a major spoiler. That ending is the main reason this is getting two stars instead of three, but since it's such a massive spoiler I'll save it for the end. For now, I'll focus on the story's main content and why I rated it at three stars.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace is made up of three stories told in a rotating fashion. Story one takes place around 1751, story two takes place around 4 BCE, and story three takes place in the modern era. The novel rotates between those three stories in a repeating pattern with every third chapter returning you to the same story. The connection between the stories is rather vague. You can quickly guess that these are the same characters meeting in different lives, but who is who can be hard to follow. Some lives even see new characters that only exist for that life. Explicit reveals of who is who happen, but they're saved until pretty late in the book. Even with the explicit reveals, I found it hard to remember which character was which due to the constantly changing names and contexts as each life the characters live is wildly different from the last.
If I'd loved the three stories, then this confusion might have been a selling feature as the stories do mostly stand alone and each one has it's own unique reveals, meaning that there's a high re-read value once you know how each story ends even if you aren't sure who was who. However while the settings were interesting and pacing was excellent, I can't say that any of the stories won my heart. I was mostly just reading out of bewilderment to see where all of this was going. Having now reached the destination, I'm not sure if it was worth the ride. It's definitely not worth the ride if you like happy and uplifting endings or want positive messages in your stories.
The general plots of the three stories are as follows:
1751: a young man named He Shican has a homosexual encounter of dubious consent with another young man. When his father finds out, He Shican is disinherited even though he's the older son. This leads He Shican to go off into the world to try to make his own way. He ends up setting up an inn in a remote forest where he lives happily until a young man named Jiulang shows up with a sick old woman in tow. This begins a series of events that unravel He Shican's quiet life forever
4 BCE: a young man named Dong Xian serves as a lowly clerk in the emperor's palace. Through a strange series of events, Dong Xian is brought before the emperor's grandmother who has decided to use Dong Xian in one of her many schemes to control her grandson the emperor Liu Xin. This latest plot sees her charging Dong Xian to seduce Liu Xin. Will Dong Xian succeed or will he lose everything as he's drawn into a deadly game involving the most powerful people in the empire? While all of the stories are pretty sexual, this was the most sexual of the three stories and a lot of it is deeply uncomfortable due to constant consent issues and the weird euphemisms Dong Xian uses. I think this was an attempt to root the novel in its chosen setting, but I cannot think of a less enticing word for an erection than "influence." I think I pulled an "ew" face every time it was used and it will be a while before I hear that word without this book haunting me.
Present day: a young man named River goes to a circuit party - basically a gay rave - with his latest hookup. While there, River meets Joey, a mysterious young man visiting from China. River finds himself inexplicably drawn to Joey, which is a problem because Joey is dating(?) Winston Chow, an insanely possessive billionaire who considers Joey his. River's connection to Joey is further complicated as River starts to realize that he and Joey have a connection that somehow began long before their first meeting.
The plots of these three stories might lead you to think that this is a romance, but it's not. At least, it's not the kind of story you expect when you hear the word "romance." You could maybe call this a dark romance, but even that feels like a stretch as nothing about this is romantic. The lead characters' bond seems to be based on nothing more than lust and a vague mystical connection that draws them together even though they're toxic influences in each other's lives. If there was romantic love at work here, then it flew right over my head. Even if I had bought the romance, I'd still say that this is more a story about messy humanity than a story about love which leads up to my spoiler for the ending as that's what everything builds to and I hated it.
Spoiler
As you can guess just from the timeline, the reincarnation cycle of our two leads starts with the story set in 4 BCE. By the end of that story, Dong Xian and Liu Xin are happily together, but in the final chapter, Liu Xin's cousin sexually assaults Dong Xian. Dong Xian tries to refuse, but eventually gives in because he's got an erection and the cousin convinces him that this means that the sex is wanted. After the sex is over, Dong Xian is horrified and says this can never happen again. We then cut to a scene of Liu Xin and Dong Xian standing before a crowd as the cousin looks on evilly. That's the nebulous ending of the 4 BCE story.The 1751 story is where we learn some vague details of what happened next. Liu Xin's reincarnation reveals that when he died, he was given the chance to enter heaven, but refused it because he knew that Dong Xian slept with his cousin. Instead of going to peace in heaven, Liu Xin retruned to earth instead so that he could find Dong Xian's reincarnations and get revenge on him for his "betrayal." Talk about victim blaming!!! The scene between Dong Xian and the cousin was not written like a cheating scene! The two characters never even got along! The cousin was always portrayed as someone Dong Xian feared! I was horrified that this book labeled their encounter as something other than rape. A fact that's extra true because Dong Xian's story featured a lot of questionable sexual encounters which heightened his victim status for me. This final assault just felt like the icing on a shit cake of people using him. I didn't love his character, but I did feel deeply sorry for him.
This victim blaming mess could have been saved if there was a moment where Liu Xin learned the truth of what happened and absolved Dong Xian, bringing them both peace, but that's not what the story gives us. Both Liu Xin and Dong Xian's reincarnations treat it as cheating whenever they remember what happened. This is painted as a story where Dong Xian is eternally trying to make up for his "betrayal." By the end of the tale, he still hasn't freed them and the implication is that he will go on blaming himself and trying to make things right for all of time.
Between the consent issues, the lack of romance, and the messed up ending, I can't recommend this one. It was a unique story and the pacing was great, but those are the only real positive things I can say about this one. I honestly debated giving it one star because of the ending, but decided to go with two because I was engaged by the novel from start to finish and I guess that deserves something?
i'm not a prude but damn we were torpedo'd right into the spice and i suddenly miss when i didn't know how to read english 🤣 i had no idea this was mostly smut. i just knew from an ig ad that it was gonna be an “asian lgbt romance” and the cover made it look like an epic fantasy.
ah yes doomed yaoi
id say 2.5/5 or 2.75/5
i will say i enjoy this take on soulmates but i think the execution is a bit choppy? the twist towards the end where you find out person a is actually person b and who Remembers who was a bit confusing and it’s supposed to be a cursed love triangle but i didn’t really Feel it as much. maybe i also need to read more smut set in ancient china bc it was bit corny LMAO also the most compelling relationship was btwn ml and Calvin and after reading the author notes was inspired by his real life bestie so makes sense
id say 2.5/5 or 2.75/5
i will say i enjoy this take on soulmates but i think the execution is a bit choppy? the twist towards the end where you find out person a is actually person b and who Remembers who was a bit confusing and it’s supposed to be a cursed love triangle but i didn’t really Feel it as much. maybe i also need to read more smut set in ancient china bc it was bit corny LMAO also the most compelling relationship was btwn ml and Calvin and after reading the author notes was inspired by his real life bestie so makes sense
adventurous
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes