Scan barcode
A review by amberimagines
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
1.5
I read an ARC copy of this book, my review is based on that! I was very excited for this book, but unfortunately I did not have a good time. The premise of this book sounded so excellent and epic, but the execution felt so stale! It's been marketed as a romantasy, but where is the romance!? lol. I think because the idea of this book is like fated love the author didn't spend as much time building up the chemistry between the couples and making their romance feel believable. It was like reading about strangers who we are told "love each other" or have this incredible attraction and then that's it, from their we are expected to believe it. I wish the author had spent more time really building a connection between the characters. Actual romance is more present in one of the timelines, and I definitely enjoyed Don Xian and Liu Xin's timeline the connection between them was developed more.
It feels like we're just reading about random events that are happening to three different characters, some of which have no explanation at all...This book features three timelines that are supposed to be interwoven resulting in a love transcends time storyline (this is from the official summary so no spoilers!). This love transcending time plot was what drew me to the book in the first place, but again the execution was poor in my opinion. The interconnectedness of the timelines is very obvious early on and I felt that took away from any sense of wonder for the reader. There is also very little world-building so you have to do a lot of creation as the reader to imagine the unique aspects of each timeline.
This next criticism is very unique to me, but the marketing of this book as "genre-bending" and "challenging what we know about true love" created an expectation in my mind of this truly epic, eternal romance, but the tone of this book actually is very silly and not very serious and in my opinion didn't match with the way it was described. The tone also didn't really match what I think the book was trying to do, and it made it a bit confusing trying to understand exactly what we're supposed to be taking away from this story. Like what exactly did this book challenge about true love lol. The dialogue was very silly and humorous? Again not the vibe I think it was going for. Also the sex scenes were so goofy 🤣😠idk maybe this book actually was trying to be funny bc honestly that would make more sense. I feel like this book is fighting against itself, the silly and lighthearted tone undermines it's message.
I wish we had more time in the heads of all of the characters, I think that would have helped us understand who they are more and make us more invested in their romances! I wish this had happened with all of the main characters, but particularly Dong Xian because that would have helped understand his choices. There were so many instances in this book where I felt that things were just happening randomly, and characters were making completely random decisions that made no sense, but I think more time developing the characters would have helped give more weight and meaning to some aspects of the plot and the conflicts.
Overall I feel like this book took on a plot too large that it wasn't able to fully realize. It was kind of a mess and unfortunately a disappointment for me.
It feels like we're just reading about random events that are happening to three different characters, some of which have no explanation at all...This book features three timelines that are supposed to be interwoven resulting in a love transcends time storyline (this is from the official summary so no spoilers!). This love transcending time plot was what drew me to the book in the first place, but again the execution was poor in my opinion. The interconnectedness of the timelines is very obvious early on and I felt that took away from any sense of wonder for the reader. There is also very little world-building so you have to do a lot of creation as the reader to imagine the unique aspects of each timeline.
This next criticism is very unique to me, but the marketing of this book as "genre-bending" and "challenging what we know about true love" created an expectation in my mind of this truly epic, eternal romance, but the tone of this book actually is very silly and not very serious and in my opinion didn't match with the way it was described. The tone also didn't really match what I think the book was trying to do, and it made it a bit confusing trying to understand exactly what we're supposed to be taking away from this story. Like what exactly did this book challenge about true love lol. The dialogue was very silly and humorous? Again not the vibe I think it was going for. Also the sex scenes were so goofy 🤣😠idk maybe this book actually was trying to be funny bc honestly that would make more sense. I feel like this book is fighting against itself, the silly and lighthearted tone undermines it's message.
I wish we had more time in the heads of all of the characters, I think that would have helped us understand who they are more and make us more invested in their romances! I wish this had happened with all of the main characters, but particularly Dong Xian because that would have helped understand his choices. There were so many instances in this book where I felt that things were just happening randomly, and characters were making completely random decisions that made no sense, but I think more time developing the characters would have helped give more weight and meaning to some aspects of the plot and the conflicts.
Overall I feel like this book took on a plot too large that it wasn't able to fully realize. It was kind of a mess and unfortunately a disappointment for me.