Review by pastelmeganes - The Emperor and the Endless Palace

pastelmeganes 's review for:

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

3.75

adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I think the premise of the book was interesting; however, there are some tweaks i believe that couldve made it better. I felt the story wasn’t fleshed out enough and couldve benefitted from more exposure in regards to the different timelines. I think Shican’s left me the most bewildered and felt very disjointed compared to the other two. Also i feel like the story wasn’t fleshed cheapened a bit with the miscellaneous use of drugs as well as some of the sex scenes. Right when i felt like I was going to get some interesting bulk of lore, i felt like there was a fleshed out sex scene that felt disjointed.

River’s and Calvin’s relationship also felt very hollow. I didn’t get a meaningful relationship between the two. I kinda didn’t want River to end up with any of them honestly.

The lore between the emperor and dong xian was the most cohesive and straight forward which was endearing to see their relationship blossom.

This style of book wasn’t really my cup of tea but i can see why someone would really like it. It had sex, mystery, ancient lore of emperors and magic but it didn’t quite hit it home for me. I felt it had pieces of all of those but lacked a stable standing any in particular.

Content Warnings