This was one of my most anticipated books this year. The first book was nearly perfect for me, so I had high expectations for this one too.

There's no doubt that Shelley Parker-Chan is an amazing writer. The world they built is magnificent and felt so real, as if I was truly there myself. Their characters are rich and complex, their internal turmoil so palpable in these pages. The way they are written evokes such complicated and conflicting emotions – they are obviously not good people, but you can't help but understand them and root for them. 

If I had to pick a favourite, it would be Ouyang. Both his and Zhu's motivations and drive are portrayed so well. Unfortunately I can't say the same for Baoxiang's. As

he's the one who the book is titled after

, I expected his storyline to be clearer and done better. 

Everything was amazing until Chapter 15, and then it started to disintegrate. Baoxiang's chapters started to feel repetitive and extremely rambly, his motivations unclear from the writing. Even after finishing the book, I couldn't truly understand his reasoning, and what I did understand felt wonky to me.

And it wasn't just Baoxiang's POVs that took a nosedive. The entirety of Chapter 17 felt as if it was written by someone else and what took place in it was so full of holes and so far fetched that it bordered ridiculous.

Drowning the men and resuscitating them? Please. Steering through the gaps between the ghosts when ghosts can move? Makes no sense. Zhu was supposed to go through with each ship, which means she would have had to go back and forth, but there was no way for her to do that and it sounded like they went through all at once, on a single ship. But once they were through, they had many ships again. It was all just confusing and illogical. Then, they send swimmers to pour oil around Chen's ships, when we know from an earlier chapter that her men can't really swim. After that, they needed someone to go and physically light the oil on fire, so they needed a swimmer again, but suddenly they had a hard time finding one, and Xu Da sacrificed himself, when they had a bunch of pirate women who could swim? Hmmm.

Aside from that, I can't see why

Ouyang had to die. And him dying left me feeling like their story had no conclusion. I think the let-people-be-who-they-are message would have had a stronger impact had Zhu and Ouyang stood together at the end, with Ouyang finally accepting her as she is, and coming to terms with who he is.

Overall, I can appreciate it for Parker-Chan's beautiful worldbuilding and use of language, but I can't help but feel let down at the same time.