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A review by maeverose
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
5.0
My first 5⭐️ of the year!!
I was expecting to like this but I wasn’t expecting it to make me cry.
The writing is beautiful and atmospheric, the story takes it’s time and is simultaneously comforting and painful. I always love the ‘stories attached to items’ trope (is that a trope?) and this has that. I was worried I wasn’t fully understanding it at first (with all the ‘do you understand?’ moments..), but by the end I did. Well, I’m sure there are details that I missed but I understood the overall story. This is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read I think. Please read it.
I was expecting to like this but I wasn’t expecting it to make me cry.
The writing is beautiful and atmospheric, the story takes it’s time and is simultaneously comforting and painful. I always love the ‘stories attached to items’ trope (is that a trope?) and this has that. I was worried I wasn’t fully understanding it at first (with all the ‘do you understand?’ moments..), but by the end I did. Well, I’m sure there are details that I missed but I understood the overall story. This is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read I think. Please read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Suicide, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Classism, Kidnapping, and Misogyny
Minor: Animal death, Slavery, and War
Forced separation from a child and forced separation from a romantic partner, brief mention of a beheading, drowning and gutting (not detailed).