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A review by whatvictoriaread
The Last Empress by Anchee Min
3.0
This second book in the historical fiction duology follows Empress Orchid during her later years as China goes through the dark and violent years at the end of the nineteenth century.
As I found with the first book, this painted an interesting and sympathetic portrait of ‘The Dragon Lady’ and I enjoyed reading about the political manoeuvrings of the time.
However, the writing style also felt very distanced from what was happening and even though it’s told in first person, I didn’t feel connected to either the people or the events that were being explained and so ultimately, the book didn’t quite work for me.
As I found with the first book, this painted an interesting and sympathetic portrait of ‘The Dragon Lady’ and I enjoyed reading about the political manoeuvrings of the time.
However, the writing style also felt very distanced from what was happening and even though it’s told in first person, I didn’t feel connected to either the people or the events that were being explained and so ultimately, the book didn’t quite work for me.