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A review by chanzlyn
Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai
emotional
funny
hopeful
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? Yes
3.5
🎧: 4/5 - the overall narrator sounded great and gave a lot of life to the characters! There were a couple of characters that had the same voice so it was a bit confusing at those moments but it happened very rarely.
🌶️: 1.5/5 - there are two explicit scenes but they read as more soft and romantic than "spicy". They did have some spicy lines but just really beautiful!
AT THE TOP I want to say that ultimately I do love the ideas presented in this world/story and I'm interested to see what Mia Tsai will put out next, if it'll explore this world or not. It did take me until about 40% of the way through the book to really get into it but once I was in, I found the elements in this world and story fascinating by the half way point, that it made it easy to forgive the bit of time it took me to get invested and still come out with love for this novel. The romance portion of the book, despite being insta-love (not a fan of that trope personally), makes this book worth the read in the end!
Now for the issues that I had...the main big issue was the amount of "telling" and not "showing" this book had. She introduces her best friend and goes "she's a Black woman" or a side character and says "An East Asian Man". She does describe their appearance a bit, more so with her best friend than with the side character but it's not enough to really give me an image in my head and is just too spoon-feeding rather than world building.
The first issue is that this book felt like it wanted to be an urban high-fantasy story with all of the fantasy elements it wanted to incorporate but at the same time really heavily relies on the reader having a background with a wide variety of fantasy and even modern day information (the two locations are Raleigh North Carolina and a couple of cities in France - so no actual "world" building but also I'd have to look up those places as I'm not familiar with them ultimately). I'm all about diversity and showcasing more than just Westernized concepts of fantasy but there wasn't enough information about these variety of races/creatures/etc that it simultaneously felt like an overload and lack of information. At one point it makes mention of a Tanuki which I'm familiar with! But from the description, I couldn't tell if that person in this story was a shapeshifter? If it was humanish looking with Tanuki features? Just a traditional Tanuki? Same goes for the Oni. Because not every person can shift but it's never really explained if there are shifters or not. And this isn't just for non-western mythos, there are mentions of harpies, elves, etc but not much detail about them so the "world" building in terms of the creatures/people that inhabit it wasn't very clear to me.
Another issue I had with the story was that it felt like two stories that were just pushed into one novel rather than having elements of both tales weaved into each other so it flowed more naturally through the book:
🌶️: 1.5/5 - there are two explicit scenes but they read as more soft and romantic than "spicy". They did have some spicy lines but just really beautiful!
AT THE TOP I want to say that ultimately I do love the ideas presented in this world/story and I'm interested to see what Mia Tsai will put out next, if it'll explore this world or not. It did take me until about 40% of the way through the book to really get into it but once I was in, I found the elements in this world and story fascinating by the half way point, that it made it easy to forgive the bit of time it took me to get invested and still come out with love for this novel. The romance portion of the book, despite being insta-love (not a fan of that trope personally), makes this book worth the read in the end!
Now for the issues that I had...the main big issue was the amount of "telling" and not "showing" this book had. She introduces her best friend and goes "she's a Black woman" or a side character and says "An East Asian Man". She does describe their appearance a bit, more so with her best friend than with the side character but it's not enough to really give me an image in my head and is just too spoon-feeding rather than world building.
The first issue is that this book felt like it wanted to be an urban high-fantasy story with all of the fantasy elements it wanted to incorporate but at the same time really heavily relies on the reader having a background with a wide variety of fantasy and even modern day information (the two locations are Raleigh North Carolina and a couple of cities in France - so no actual "world" building but also I'd have to look up those places as I'm not familiar with them ultimately). I'm all about diversity and showcasing more than just Westernized concepts of fantasy but there wasn't enough information about these variety of races/creatures/etc that it simultaneously felt like an overload and lack of information. At one point it makes mention of a Tanuki which I'm familiar with! But from the description, I couldn't tell if that person in this story was a shapeshifter? If it was humanish looking with Tanuki features? Just a traditional Tanuki? Same goes for the Oni. Because not every person can shift but it's never really explained if there are shifters or not. And this isn't just for non-western mythos, there are mentions of harpies, elves, etc but not much detail about them so the "world" building in terms of the creatures/people that inhabit it wasn't very clear to me.
Another issue I had with the story was that it felt like two stories that were just pushed into one novel rather than having elements of both tales weaved into each other so it flowed more naturally through the book:
- The first major conflict is with a family member that is somewhat resolved half way through the book! It seemed like he was going to be this huge issue but ultimately nothing really comes of it.
It's determined he's captured but other than her family working out his house arrest, we actually don't get much information otherwise. Does he get in trouble for trying to kill his siblings? Do we get a solid conclusion of what happens to him? Not that I could recall. It just felt like there was a lot of build up for the younger sibling being an issue but then we just kind of moved on like it wasn't that important compared to the romance story/her rediscovering herself. - The second story was the romance/her rediscovering herself. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adored Luc and Elle together! I won't lie that insta-love type stories aren't my flavor but it felt like the book was supposed to be a focus on them, which is great, but the shift from her sibling storyline to the romance just felt a bit jarring. Had this book just been about Luc and Elle and their relationship, I think I would have loved it a lot more! I understand that the conflict with her younger sibling is a huge part of why things played out the way it does for the romance but it just wasn't woven together in a way that felt right. It was like "here's main plot one that suddenly ends with the thing that matters for the romance plot" rather than "here's main plot one with bits and pieces through the story that showed the reader how it will connect to the romance". It was just a balance of two different stories that I feel missed the mark.
I want to add that while this type of story telling structure can work where you have one major story plot "end" in the middle, it just didn't feel right here because of how disconnected they are ultimately.
The last issue, that I briefly touched on in the point above, is the lack of conclusion in most of the major plot points.Luc just walks away from his job because Oberon can no longer control him? That's really weird since he didn't lose his abilities otherwise to work and we should at least have gotten a final confrontation between the pair. Then there was a lot of build up about her ancestor's Jade but then it never came back. Next was her story arc with the younger brother was never really finalized (it's fine if there is another book coming in this series and he'll make a return but something about his current state would have been nice!) Is her older brother going to go back to being a fixer? Is he just going to keep his practice going? Like what's his storyline now that he's fully healed? Also why did she remove his jade in the first place? I understand that it's partly because her younger brother was out for blood but they built up Tony to be powerful so he probably could have faced off against his younger sibling anyways? So why did she step in to "kill" him? Just nothing felt clear and if things were explained, the amount of heavy world building without a lot of showing washed over those bits of detail. And maybe these points aren't "resolved" to setup for the next novel but aside from the romance, not a single point was resolved when at least one or two of them should have a "ending for now" type of setup rather than this empty space.
One note that's not really an issue or praise but something that was interesting. I saw there was a afterword (which unfortunately doesn't come in the audiobook) where Mia Tsai talks about using multiple languages in the book because of her experience as a reader feeling like she was being shut out in stories that featured languages she didn't understand. "There isn't anything in the non-English dialogue that's critical to the overall understanding of the text, but I wanted explicitly for readers to experience the shutting of the door, the dropping of the portcullis." While I understand the sentiment, I do wish she added a context clue or two to things she referenced. Like she'd say a character was proficient in "something-in-another-language" and nothing more - while I get that it ultimately doesn't make/break the story, having context of if that's a weapon, a magical ability, etc, would have fleshed things out more and given more "show" to the reader. It still would have given me the experience of "the shutting of the door" effect as I wouldn't know details of the thing that person is proficient in but it would have at least built the character out more. Whether or not I like this approach of letting your readers experience the issue she's faced is neither here nor there in my review as what author's intend for their readers to feel is not something I care to debate on.
AS FOR THINGS I LOVED
Calligraphy magic is SO cool and I found the general magic world fascinating from the little ideas I was able to gleam!! I wish we had more expanded information on the calligraphy magic because she mentions she doesn't even need her brush but I'm not entirely sure how that would work. It's also really neat that she's a descendant of a healing god but it doesn't seem like everyone in her family has so there's a lot of ways magic works itself through this world.
The characters are a joy to follow and I really found myself loving all the main ones that popped up.
Can we also talk about the diversity of this novel?? From race representation to the diverse mythos, to the LGTBQIA+ rep?? incredible. I do have some issues with how she presented a gay character at the beginning but otherwise I genuinely loved how everything was presented and just felt naturally woven into this world.
I know I wrote some lengthy notes that might feel contradicting to me saying I still ultimately loved this book but it's true, I did love this world! You can absolutely love something while still being critical of it. I am only as critical as I am with this because I think Mia Tsai brings a fresh breath of air to the fantasy genre and I can only hope she'll bring more. She has interesting ideas, concepts, and a world that is full of so many possibilities. While the overarching story with the sibling was a miss for me, the world was fascinating and I did ultimately love their love story.
The last issue, that I briefly touched on in the point above, is the lack of conclusion in most of the major plot points.
One note that's not really an issue or praise but something that was interesting. I saw there was a afterword (which unfortunately doesn't come in the audiobook) where Mia Tsai talks about using multiple languages in the book because of her experience as a reader feeling like she was being shut out in stories that featured languages she didn't understand. "There isn't anything in the non-English dialogue that's critical to the overall understanding of the text, but I wanted explicitly for readers to experience the shutting of the door, the dropping of the portcullis." While I understand the sentiment, I do wish she added a context clue or two to things she referenced. Like she'd say a character was proficient in "something-in-another-language" and nothing more - while I get that it ultimately doesn't make/break the story, having context of if that's a weapon, a magical ability, etc, would have fleshed things out more and given more "show" to the reader. It still would have given me the experience of "the shutting of the door" effect as I wouldn't know details of the thing that person is proficient in but it would have at least built the character out more. Whether or not I like this approach of letting your readers experience the issue she's faced is neither here nor there in my review as what author's intend for their readers to feel is not something I care to debate on.
AS FOR THINGS I LOVED
Calligraphy magic is SO cool and I found the general magic world fascinating from the little ideas I was able to gleam!! I wish we had more expanded information on the calligraphy magic because she mentions she doesn't even need her brush but I'm not entirely sure how that would work. It's also really neat that she's a descendant of a healing god but it doesn't seem like everyone in her family has so there's a lot of ways magic works itself through this world.
The characters are a joy to follow and I really found myself loving all the main ones that popped up.
Can we also talk about the diversity of this novel?? From race representation to the diverse mythos, to the LGTBQIA+ rep?? incredible. I do have some issues with how she presented a gay character at the beginning but otherwise I genuinely loved how everything was presented and just felt naturally woven into this world.
I know I wrote some lengthy notes that might feel contradicting to me saying I still ultimately loved this book but it's true, I did love this world! You can absolutely love something while still being critical of it. I am only as critical as I am with this because I think Mia Tsai brings a fresh breath of air to the fantasy genre and I can only hope she'll bring more. She has interesting ideas, concepts, and a world that is full of so many possibilities. While the overarching story with the sibling was a miss for me, the world was fascinating and I did ultimately love their love story.