Drink every time somebody works a muscle in their jaw! June Hur's editor should have caught that because I began to be like AYO!! when they said that.

I wanted to like this so much more than I did...
Genuinely don't really understand why these characters like each other, there wasn't much chemistry and it did not help I wasn't really feeling either of them individually too much. But all being said there is stuff to like here, the history is nice and in the audiobook Greg Chun kinda slayed with the evil king voice, like everytime the king wasn't in the chapter I was like BRING HIM BACK NOW!! May look into more audiobooks of his because that was super fun.

I don't count it against the book but I often struggle with historical books that are intended to be grounded historical fiction (that is, not like fantasy elements or intended to be not realistic etc.) when it comes to the character's politics. This seems skewed towards a younger audience so I think it's an even less valid complaint from me but sometimes it feels like the characters are written with modern sensibilities about things that I can't truly picture them having without having to do some soul-searching at some point or had exposure to at a young age. Particularly Iseul, she's literally a pampered girl who grew up without having to do any work in a very misogynistic society and somehow she did a heel turn before the book started and became an independent feminist character. I think this end goal is super reasonable in and of itself but like, wouldn't her journey be extremely hard? What exposure has she had to feminist ideals or are these all conclusions she made by herself? Is this a common sentiment thus why no female characters in the book appear to fight back against it? Idk why I'm harping on it but I see this kind of thing all the time and it always confuses me, like who taught this prince about consent and to respect women if he grew up in that royal family!? But as I say, I'm not holding that entire charge against this book, just part of why I didn't really connect with the characters ultimately. 

Also one last thing, cover artist kinda ate with this! Shout out Yejin Park!