sometimes the stories would be repetitive, but mostly all of them did bring me close to tears or got me very emotional. my favourite ones where xin chao xin chao, hanji and youngju and a song from afar. 

the more i read, the more i was consumed and enthralled by this quest for not just greatness but belonging, and fulfilling of destiny for not just chongba but ouyang as well. watching both their stories unfurl and intertwine was thrilling at many points, and kept me hooked despite the long chapters! looking forward to the next book in this duology. 

the very first sentence threw me off. that’s definitely not grammatical, right? from then on i was disheartened by the writing, and aggravated by the fact that the real plot didn’t really start until 200 pages of the 500 in total. that was also the point the mc and her love interest finally started showing chemistry, everything before that was just polite conversation. 

it still made me laugh at times, and it was a cute book to read with an admirable main character. i just wish it was much shorter. 

although i did enjoy and laugh as much as i did for the first one, i felt like the mc was too similar to the one from the first book, and the jane austen references felt clogging. i loved the colourful range of characters and reuniting with old favourites from the first one, and will definitely anticipate the third book coming out this spring :)

i might get back to it, but right now i wasn’t feeling it. and why was the word ‘fucking’ used as an adjective for every other sentence? 

a great sapphic historical romance, with many hilarious parts and a romance i was invested in and endeared by.