bookish_enchantress 's review for:

The Moon in the Palace by Weina Dai Randel

4.0

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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Because it spans about eight or nine years, we get to watch Mei go from a young girl into a young woman. She does remain somewhat naive throughout, which shows how she still doesn't fully grasp some of the conniving ways of the court. I am curious as to how that will change once I begin the next book! The writing is beautiful in terms of the vivid descriptions and lyrical in its prose. I loved the flow of it. My only complaint/question is some of the inconsistencies with names. For example, Taixi is a Chinese name whereas multiple plain names such as Jewel, Plum, Pheasant, etc. were used in English. Curious as to why the author did not use a stylized form of a Chinese word to represent those names.