“She would bloom where she was planted and let her roots close around the throats of her enemies.”

Stars (Out of 10): 7/10 Stars

Favorite Character: Gotta say Shiro, only character who didn’t seem super evil? (Oh and the Crown Prince, he was decent too)

Spoiler Free: Now I’m not going to say this is the best release of 2017, because it really wasn’t. But I will say that this was a very enjoyable read, and it's still messing with me right now.

Xifeng is not an MC that you necessarily want to live up to, but she’s amazing because of that. She is strong and powerful yes, but she is also selfish, shallow, and to be honest, more than a little bit evil. Getting to be inside her brain was downright scary at points, but that just contributed to the uniqueness of this book. The book still wants you to support her, and this creates almost an inner battle within us. Do we support this women, ready to do anything to follow her destiny, or do we support those that try to bring her down?

But the characters was not the only thing this book had going for it. While I did find the plot predictable at points, and not necessarily the book's strongest trait, I absolutely loved the world. While it could have been more developed, I really enjoyed a book that just seemed fully immersed in the world’s culture. It didn’t stop to explain every little thing, it just existed, and that made the story flow pretty well in my opinion.

Lastly, this book went super fast. The more simple level of writing, when compared to Laini Taylor’s Strange The Dreamer and Maggie Stiefvater’s All The Crooked Saints at least, fits well to the story, but also makes it not that difficult to digest, meaning I actually finished this quite quickly! Overall, in terms of language and writing style, it felt like just your average YA fantasy.

Careful! Spoilers beyond this point!

Spoilers: Here, I’m going to try and discuss why I didn’t give this book a 10/10, and this mainly is due to the plot.

For one, I never felt the conflict of Wei vs. Court, since I could never find myself cheering for Wei and Xifeng to be together. Right off the bat, Wei is too controlling, too judgemental, and we just never see his sweet side without his angry side. This means that I also never get her sacrifice or struggle between choosing to continue her quest at court, or simply running away. I’m not even convinced Xifeng ever truly loved Wei, as she pointed out his cons more than his pros, and often referred to him as a friend as well. Additionally, she completely forgot about Wei (in the thoughts shared with us), as soon as she got to court, only stopping to think about him when the celebration came, as well as her next chance to see him.

Another flaw was the predictability of one of the main twists, Guma being the true mother of Xifeng. When Xifeng runs away, Guma refers to her as daughter, and while Xifeng brushes this off, it seemed very clear to me how obvious this foreshadowing was.

Lastly, the overarching presence of Guma, and Xifeng’s reliance on her, felt very polarizing at points. I completely understand the struggle of an abused child between love and hate of that parent/guardian, but Xifeng’s struggle felt way too back and forth. At points, she was ready to completely forget about her, but as soon as Xifeng started to realize what being truly fed and cared for felt like, she began to love Guma more than hate her, which just felt strange. Additionally, by the end it seems like we were supposed to realize that Guma did her best for Xifeng, and that’s all you can ask for from a parent, but I can’t find it in me to forgive a mother who chose to beat her child to protect her.

But regardless of all that, seeing an evil queen rise, and become even more evil throughout the story, was definitely different than everything I’ve ever read before, and I loved it! Usually you see this change occur backwards, with either the MC or main villain working to extinguish the darkness from their hearts, or even feel some remorse at their actions, but it was almost a breath of fresh air to see the mind of a villain so set in what they wanted, and willing to actually do whatever it takes to get it.