Hmm. So, not the best imo. Here’s what I think this book was trying to be:
✨ a gritty fantasy in a futuristic-meets-historical Asian, Walloon-style setting
✨ an Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare retelling
✨ The Hunger Games

Which sounds amazing right?

I think it succeeded with the setting. The alleys, the market stalls, the mixture of swords and computers, the CCTV, the Asian vibes to everything—it was cool. I thought the body-jumping and qi based magic system was great. It wasn’t perfect (could have fetishized poverty less, for example) but I’ll take it.

The retelling part of it? I’m not a Shakespeare-ologist, but I’d say this was a fail. I don’t know if I would have even clocked it as an Antony and Cleopatra retelling if their names hadn’t been Anton Makusa and Calla Tuoleimi (and August, Pampi, Galipei etc). It was kind of the worst kind of retelling—aka, close enough to the source material that it spoiled plot points I wish it hadn’t… But so completely unlike the source material that it wasn’t bringing any actual Shakespearean pathos to the table.

Plus, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra were 🔥 but in this book Anton and Calla had absolutely zero chemistry and that “romance” plot was making me physically cringe.

And then The Hunger Games part of it was thoroughly meh. For me, THG is a critique of plutocracy (government by the wealthy) first and a deadly game second. And making all our POV characters members of the ruling class really missed this point. By a mile.

But even as a deadly game, it was just okay. It didn’t feel as high stakes, the reasons why characters joined didn’t make the most sense, and the Ru character in here kinda flopped for me.