I don't want to throw around the word "propaganda," but it's the term that came to mind while reading this book. (To be fair, it's self-labeled as "A Manifesto," which maybe should have been a warning sign to me.) A lot of words are used but I'm not sure that much meaning is conveyed; there's a lot of generalities and sweeping statements. I'm anti-capitalist and anti-racist, but I can't say that I agree with some of the more extreme claims presented here. 

Atmospheric, check. Faerie lore and academia, check. Multiple intriguing subplots, check.

On the other hand: This is written in the style of Olde English Academic Texts (the kind of book they made you read in high school that you SparkNotes'd instead), which I'm not really into but could potentially get past. The protagonist isn't labeled as autistic but fits the stereotype to a T, including arrogance and lack of empathy, and I'm not about that either.

But the dealbreaker for me is the obvious comp-het romance, which I am REALLY not into. I just don't buy it at all, and I like to think I'm pretty good at suspending disbelief even for romantic development. So added to the above, I'm not gonna be picking this one back up. 

oops my library loan expired and the holds queue is v. long

I received an advance review copy from Orbit Books through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest.

I remember enjoying the first book and being intrigued by the ending, but by the time I picked this up I had forgotten a lot of what previously happened, which made it difficult to reorient myself in the opening chapters and was definitely a major obstacle despite the in-text allusions to prior events. A lot of the characters' reasoning and actions seem illogical, irrational, and/or too plot-convenient; it didn't help that the narration felt really repetitive too.

I received an advance review copy from Orbit Books through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest. 

Truthfully, I was intimidated as soon as I opened the (e)book to a very long list of characters. Several chapters in and I still hadn't connected with, or gotten significantly attached to, any of them - which in turn made it difficult to get invested in the plot or worldbuilding, particularly since the pacing felt off, somehow. The prose was also a bit distracting, in that it felt somewhat anachronistic with the setting and was more descriptive than I tend to prefer.

I like family-centered stories, but maybe I should stop trying to read political ones.

I received an advance review copy from Wednesday Books (St. Martin's Press) through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest. 

While the premise is intriguing and the worldbuilding immersive, I found the prose a bit distracting (overly lush, and the jokes weren't particularly funny to me), the characters somewhat generic, and the plot slightly confusing.

I received an advance review copy from Orbit Books through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest. 

I wanted to give Tara Sim another chance despite my having DNF'd Scavenge the Stars, but Sim's writing style just doesn't seem to work for me. I was also somewhat overwhelmed by the vastness of the worldbuilding and the constant POV changes.

I received an advance review copy from Orbit Books through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest. 

The premise is really interesting, particularly the emphasis on translation, language, and culture. But I tend to have some trouble with satire in general (a classic case of "it's not the book, it's me"), and with this book I'm also having some trouble with the humor and the main character's somewhat abrasive personality. 

The Chang'e legend was one of my favorites growing up, but I was wary of the protagonist potentially coasting on her "daughter of a literal legend" (or two, if you also count Houyi) status. And thus far this seems to be the case, with Xingyin repeatedly needing to be saved by other people even while she remains convinced that she has all the makings of a hero in her own right; unfortunately I can't say that I genuinely want her to succeed. I also have some issues with the fundamental worldbuilding (for example, the "daughter of a human-turned-immortal (and a human favored by the gods who was meant to become immortal) automatically becomes a celestial being" thing) and the writing style just isn't doing it for me. 

The main thing is that I'm just not a fan of the writing style, which feels overly showy and dramatic; since I'm not (yet) invested in any of the characters from the opening chapter, the immediate jump to a flashback was off-putting on its own — even aside from how Angie is portrayed to be rude bordering on mean (and not in a way that could reasonably be explained away by "just made a bad first impression").