Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this feminist sci-fi inspired by Chinese history.

    The cover, the description, the polyamory, so many things about this book made it a must read for me, and it was even better than I thought it would be! Although this story is inspired by other things, it feels so original and refreshing. 

     My favorite part about this book was the characters. Zetian might be one of my favorite book characters of all time! She was so complex that she might be considered an anti-hero by some, but I consider her to just be so real. I related to her so much! She’s not afraid to get dirty to get what she wants and I love the way she combatted all of the shame put on women by society and embraced what SHE wanted instead of what was expected of her. Shimin is another character whom I loved. He must be protected at all costs! I didn’t really connect to Yizhi that much, but I fell in love with the other two main characters. And I really enjoyed that the male characters showed so much emotion, more than the female characters actually. The author did a great job at throwing away gender roles and allowing people to just be.

     There weren’t many things I found wrong with this book, but there were a few. The chrysalis/qi types could be confusing to some, but since I didn’t overthink it, I didn’t get too stuck on it. I also feel like the author should’ve made a bigger deal about some things that were briefly mentioned in the beginning that eventually became important in the end. And the last problem I had was that I didn’t understand where Zetian’s meanness toward Shimin came from. She was nice to him at first and then all of a sudden, she started taking all her anger out on him out of nowhere.

     But overall, I really enjoyed this book! The characters were so lovable. I loved seeing the polyamory. And I need the sequel right now! 

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Teen for this arc! All opinions are my own.

TW: rape (mentioned), death, murder, torture, and intense misogyny