there was so much potential but we got so much telling instead of showing regarding the characters, i feel like i didn’t really get to know any of them. Their friendship felt forced and Robin told us (the readers) quiet often how he felt about his cohort but i didn’t feel it. The text did not show how deep their connections run, it felt strange when

Robin decided to step up for Remi & Victoire

. The author also shares a lot of information in the footnotes but they did not show sources. In a mix of being a non-fiction and a fictional historical novel in an academic setting, we should have gotten an appendix with sources about what Kuang is saying when referring to real-life events. It would have improved the quality of the text in my opinion. 

Note: I read the first half up to part three in the paperback version & then switched to the audiobook. The Ausiobook was easier to follow and I liked that the footnotes were read to us by another voice than the narrators.