Review by clovetra - Heavenly Tyrant

clovetra 's review for:

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

4.0

adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

hello again zetian my little pookie wookie oh how i missed you. and oh how happy i am this finally ended up being published!!!!! yay!!!!! and that this series is going to continue!!! whoohoo!!!

yet again my girlie pop zetian ate ate ate. in terms of comedy and raw personality honestly i think she’s one of my fave book characters ever. she honestly gives no fucks aside from her goals and ambitions and i think that is so cunt. she delivered yet again.

qin zheng is so fucking crazy i kinda live. his characterisation was great because he wasn’t a ridiculous villain, but he felt realistic in his politics. but he also was terrifying, and i really liked how he was fleshed out beyond just being ancient and a communist.

speaking of communism…. i lived for that plot. having ur ancient resurrected character’s politics be communism is so funny i loved it. i also loved that the “issues” with communism in the country were realistic issues with communism, and i found the politics super intriguing and fun.
i also really liked all the plot twists scattered throughout this book. they had me gasping and having to pause because i was shocked. the pacing as well was great, and it felt like everything was moving at a realistic speed.

the comedy in this book is superb. in the first book i do feel like the comedy was good, but here it really shined. all the pop culture references were super cute and were written in a way where they didn’t feel misplaced, but made me chuckle. shout out the derrick barry stonewall reference i lived.

the god subplot….. ehh i really didn’t like it, and to me it felt out of place. i mean in all honesty it *wasnt* out of place at all, but i much preferred the plot of the first book with the chrysalises. it felt so random, especially with the last 20% of the book…. i really didn’t like it and couldn’t even picture what was happening. i found it so hard to follow and that is literally the only reason why this wasn’t a 5-star. this book was great in every other aspect except anything relating to the god subplot. i’ll pass. the ending also was super weird, and it was so insanely high scifi i was turned out (and this is how i learnt im not a fan of high scifi!)

xiran jay zhao will always eat in my book. so far they’ve not let me down, and i do think the only reason this wasn’t a 5-star for me was simply because the genre the story changed to at the end wasn’t what i personally liked. and i mean hey that’s a preference! it’s not a fault of this book. i just didn’t expect it to go in that direction. but other than that i adored this book. i need the third book right neowwwwww i already miss zetian 💔

Content Warnings