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icanreadish 's review for:
The Emperor and the Endless Palace
by Justinian Huang
this is a hard book to rate. i did enjoy it and i l-o-v-e the concept. i really liked how the timelines were distinguished by clear narrative voices, and i was completely blindsided by the big twist.
that said: the sex scenes. i love smut, i love gay smut, my ao3 tags are There but a lot of the sex scenes took place in the ancient verse and the writing / vocab choices were way more cringe than intimate, sweet, tender, or sexy. some of the lines were just flat out appalling and took me out of the text. it wasn't even giving ancient chinese gay, it was giving r/menwritingwomen with some of the analogies and metaphors
that said - the modern timeline & the 1700s timeline were beautiful, grotesque, and heart wrenching. the book ends on a cliffhanger and i hope there's no plans for a sequel, because i think the ending works well for the type of book this is. i would've liked to see more chemistry-driven interactions between the two mains, as i just kind of okay, plot'd the idea that they're a great love spanning multiple lifetimes rather than base it on an understanding i get to from watching them naturally interact
based on the sex scenes i would NOT call this 'spicy' and i would NOT call their relationship 'romantic' in terms of what romantasy usually means. that said, this was a beautiful book and i'm glad i got the chance to read it
that said: the sex scenes. i love smut, i love gay smut, my ao3 tags are There but a lot of the sex scenes took place in the ancient verse and the writing / vocab choices were way more cringe than intimate, sweet, tender, or sexy. some of the lines were just flat out appalling and took me out of the text. it wasn't even giving ancient chinese gay, it was giving r/menwritingwomen with some of the analogies and metaphors
that said - the modern timeline & the 1700s timeline were beautiful, grotesque, and heart wrenching. the book ends on a cliffhanger and i hope there's no plans for a sequel, because i think the ending works well for the type of book this is. i would've liked to see more chemistry-driven interactions between the two mains, as i just kind of okay, plot'd the idea that they're a great love spanning multiple lifetimes rather than base it on an understanding i get to from watching them naturally interact
based on the sex scenes i would NOT call this 'spicy' and i would NOT call their relationship 'romantic' in terms of what romantasy usually means. that said, this was a beautiful book and i'm glad i got the chance to read it