ruaridhreads's Reviews (536)

The writing was just straight up terrible, I could not force myself past it. 

Let’s be very clear about one thing—this book is not the feminist YA revenge book of your dreams. It is a dreary chosen one novel that is evocative of the post Hunger Games dystopian boom, and not in a good way. 

We meet Wu Zetian, a girl so determined to remind us she is not like those silly other girls we hear it at least once a chapter. When she finds out she is powerful she cannot wait to remind her fellow concubines, even when trying to pretend she isn’t. Apparently solidarity doesn’t extend to wannabe assassins. 

Of course, when she meets one the other woman of her fighter class it’s hate at first sight and when she meets the other she’d filled with judgement at the idea of her having children. Tack on some downright demeaning victim blaming and the classic “I’m pretty but I don’t want to be” mirror scene and you have a pantomime of feminist literature.  

After finishing, I am still unsure exactly what the main war in this book is about. In all truthfulness everything felt surface level and unexplained, as if the book was the plan of an epic series pre-execution. We are told Zetian is powerful but the power seems to be about as well explained as Midichlorians, in fact we are told a lot and shown little. 

That isn’t even starting on the romantic partners. The handling of Shimin’s backstory made me cringe, the meeting of Shimin and Yihzi made me cringe, the surface level and fetishistic discussions of sexuality made me cringe. Honestly I don’t know how I made it through. 

The writing is evocative of that one guilty pleasure fanfiction you read a few years ago, only to return to see how heavy handed it was. Lots of Capitalisation, wall to wall metaphors, snarkily perfect retorts from our fearless protagonist, you know the drill. The dialogue is cartoonish at best. The worldbuilding is entirely inconsistent with the gratuitous exposition featured every other paragraph. And the message? Muddied by the lack of substance. 

If you love your books predicable with every trope under the sun crammed in you will enjoy this. If you ever wished No Nuance November could be distilled into a science fiction novel give it a go. Otherwise, I beg, try something else. Diverse reads aren’t so terribly hard to come by that you will have no other choices. 

it’s just so meh it’s not giving me anything

I am disturbed. I am impressed. I am never reading another book written by a man again. 

Just was not feeling the story at all. No hook. 

I couldn’t dislike Kafka more and the constant allusions to his genitals pushed me over the edge. Also, 130 pages in and there was no hook. I’ve heard such good things about Murakami but this was not a vibe.