I know this is completely off topic but since you mentioned it Graceling is actually one of my favourite YA books in terms of its romance. So much of the (heterosexual) YA romances indulge in possessive controlling male leads who often manipulate their love interests in a way i find so icky. So reading a book like Graceling where the male lead genuinely respects their love interest was such a breath of fresh air. A scene that I always circle back to in the book is where Katsa in a moment of frustration attempts to pick a fight with Po while their training. In a standard YA fantasy this moment would have lead to a blow up but Po categorically refuses to physically fight her when they're actually angry at each other. I love this moment because it models the idea that a truly healthy relationship is one built on mutual respect .
GO OFF I love that scene so much. I credit Po with helping me set healthy expectations for a romantic partner, he and Katsa are one of my favorite book romances of ALL TIME!! With the way YA romances have been going (at least in many of the fantasy ones I've read) this is the one time I'll say "reject modernity, return to tradition (aka 2008's Graceling)" LOL
I just can't get over the 6 month time jump. Like literally the entire bulk of what should be crucial development for this character and for the central dynamic....I do not understand.
gonna be honest, this isnt the 1st book review/dive ive watched for this book and it really does sound like that 6 month skip killed this book, idk if it would have saved it tho. but it probably would have helped.
@@m1zz613 I'm not surprised others have brought it up too; I remember turning the page back multiple times and checking page numbers because I thought maybe my digital arc was missing pages but NO
I distinctly remember in Anthony's POV he said he didn't know when but somehow Ruying was someone he came to love. And I was like "yeah, me too, buddy! I would have loved to know when that happened as well!"
@@irritatedlibrarian9057 I read that his POV chapters contains Taylor Swift song lyrics, and i don't know if that's true, but the fact that he has a POV suggesting he has real feelings for her makes me pretty sure the author intended for him to be endgame, which makes it even wilder that the entire build-up of their relationship happens off page
@@leahharlann Oh man that's hard. I do like her Song of The Six Realms cover, also her art for Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White. But honestly, I love this book's cover a lot. Like it looks so badass, and the colors and the composition is *chef kiss* She's tied with Kuri Huang and Corey Brickley as my current fav book cover artists atm.
She was told three times that her people were being experimented on, and it was only the third time that she actually seemed to hear it! Girl! Anthony flat out said "my people have conducted experiments on your kind"! Why did you ignore that?!!!!! I can't with this girl. I just can't.
ME TOO ksghdkshgjgh my brain glitched the first time I read that sentence and I started flipping back to the beginning trying to pick out ANY time the author had indicated that kind of technology was present but no, it just hits us out of nowhere....like a car 😂
When that reveal happened I actually lost it 😂it sent me spiraling with so many questions but the book just MOVED ON like that wasn't earth-shattering information!!
My personal theory is that they changed the love interest after the large social media backlash. Especially because of the Antony POV chapter that seems like it's trying to set up a redemption arc/emphasize the romance.
Do you know when the backlash first started? I didn't really start hearing rumblings about "colonizer romance" until late December/early January, but arcs had been available for awhile before that. If there were concerns much farther back then I would maybe understand a choice to pivot, but Chang has been calling the romance "Zutara on steroids" since practically the beginning.
I think I noticed a pivot from Zutara around Feb/Mar? The readership started to lean more toward Baihu as the only possible love interest (at least in my circles) and marketing stopped reinforcing Antony as much. But, admittedly, I wasn't seeing it as much in Jan so it could've started to shift a little earlier than I was aware of it. I think after the bullying and drama with Xiran as moderator Molly came out with a statement that it is explicitly not Antony (even though her previous marketing explicitly said it was).
@@MeMyshelfAndI I just went to check her Instagram....and she was still calling it Zutara YESTERDAY 😭Molly please, those two don't deserve to be slandered like this. So now my guess is that rather than a full pivot, Chang may have been planning to stretch the RuyingxAntony romance past the first book but then decided to end it in Book 1 after the backlash. It's just so abrupt after all, and if Ruying is going to be "pretending" to still be in love in the next book Chang probably doesn't need to scrap most of what she's already written to adapt to this change...
@@leahharlannI can say as an early arc reader, it always ended in book one… but even then it wasn’t better? Bc she was playing it like a ‘we’re going to do a will they won’t they thing in book 2’
Ok, first off, making a colonizer romance is wild, like girl what were you thinking??? It feels like the author lacked consistancy and accountability for her characters, that the author is too in love with her own characters to ever make them face the consequenes for their actions, all she cares about is making them hook up. I would be furious if all of the supposed character development moments happened off screen during a time jump. And the decision to make the "strong female lead" a simp for a colonizer, contorting herself into a pretzel to excuse a genocide of your own people...wild. And OT, I feel kinda bad for the author because she wouldn't have so many people reviewing her book and hyping the book if Cait Coran hadn't of gone on her racist campaign. Expectations may have been risen on a debut novel that was always mid.
It extra sucks cuz you could even make a character like that actually work within the story if you actually *acknowledged* that they were doing harm by turning against their own people 😢 Have her people call her out! Make her struggle with her values and set up her character arc to be a better person! I admittedly haven’t read the book, but it sounds like Chang didn’t do that from the reviews I’ve heard :/
@@xRaiofSunshine both Baihu and Meiya (her sister) do confront her after the time jump about what she's doing, but she's so in denial that she just brushes them off. She doesn't experience a lot of *personal* consequences for working for Antony other than being isolated from her own people, but she's very convinced that this is an acceptable price to pay.
it feels like the author wanted to write the romance bits, but found writing the romance actually developing (in the six month time-skip) boring or tedious, so she just… didn’t. i don’t know how the editing world works (as in, i don’t know if they’d allow my suggestion), but i feel like the story might’ve worked better if it started en media res, where she’s been working for him for a while, and the context and world is revealed slowly to the reader. i think that could’ve been more interesting?
It could have started during the raid when she was captured. Action filled first chapter, a little bit of exposition in prison, and making the deal by the second chapter. It could start with her already working as an assasin too, but that would change the introduction of her character and possibly the entire tone of the story. It all depends on what the author wants to achieve, a captured character making a desperate deal with the prince, or a rather emotionless assassin, who might be rebelling against said prince, but since she is forced to work for him, or else, she can't really do anything. She is more passive, while starting the story with her trying to escape, and then training to be an assassin would make her more active and enjoyable to read.
@@Luca..S I feel confident in saying that Chang definitely wanted Ruying to be a coward (the slogan "Heroes Die, Cowards Live" is used heavily in the marketing after all) but I love your suggestion of where the story could have kicked off! And your idea of her assassin training arc being a parallel to an internal arc of gaining more agency would have been really cool.
@@leahharlann Or the training arc could have gone to the direction where she gets manipulated into agreeing with the prince's actions/falling in love with him. I think the main concept of the story doesn't have to be changed much to make the book better, but I also haven't read it and still in the process of writing my first book I can hopefully publish when it's finished. I just consume way too much writing content on Yt, especially these kind of reviews, so I can have opinions on books I wouldn't read anyway lol
I was so disappointed in this book, but on the bright side it had me discover another wonderful artist! The cover art is gorgeous and is honestly what mainly pulled me in to buy it when I saw it at the book store 😂. At least I can display it as a nice decoration on my shelf! On another note, your Vroid model is adorable! Totally love the pallete as it gives off cozy vibes- perfect for book discussions ✨
I completely agree with the issues that you mentioned especially the mental acrobatics that Ruying does. Long chunks of the book would just be a self-pity party in her mind but nothing would ever come out of it. It got so repetitive and felt like it was there just to extend the book out longer.
Yes!! I don't even think I said it directly but so much of the book felt like padding which for a *300 page book* was WILD like how could it be so short but still have so little HAPPEN?!
I find that a lot of Zutara shippers (not all of them, so if any Zutara shipper reading this has the thought "Um, not me?" I'm probably not talking about you) have no respect for Katara as a character and only like her as a more relatable vehicle to project themselves onto in order to be with Zuko. She's more agreeable than Mai, and that's all they really need, plus with her being a main character while Mai is only in a handful of episodes. This leads to a lot of watering down her personality until it's basically gone, and misunderstanding her in a lot of ways (this also extends into weird mischaracterizations of Aang too, but...)
@@squeedtheweed You hit the nail on the coffin as to why I'm uninterested in any fan interpretation of Zutara. I can't even see them being together given Katara's overwhelming negative feelings toward the fire nation and what they did to her mother- Jet and Katara was more plausible despite the way they've felt in regards to justice.
ive noticed that quite a few of these new fantasy romance books do the love interest switcheroo where we spend the entire first book with one guy and then at the end of that book he becomes evil and the rest of the books will be with the "real" love interest. I'm seriously not a fan of it whenever it happens
Your idea of Ruying working with the rebels since the beginning could have been really fun coz she could have been sent to be a spy and pretend to work with Antony, so that way they can have those interactions the book wants to be centered around while still giving her agency and not making her seem so ignorant to what’s going on around her. She could begin to understand parts of him and his struggles and have difficulty reconciling those feelings with her knowledge of the evil she knows he’s doing, which could be super fun to explore
The book is actually marketed differently in North America and UK, depending on the publisher. So there's even disagreement within publishing on whether it's Young Adult or Adult. Unfortunately I wanted to DNF after page 2 and barely pushed myself to the end of chapter 1 (the writing style -especially the sentence fragments- drove me insane)
that doesn't surprise me! I've seen a lot of other American reviewers also note the confusion since Del Rey is not a YA imprint. I'll stand by my (semi-)professional opinion as a librarian that I wouldn't go out of my way to encourage younger YA readers to pick this up; but at the end of the day it's up to the reader, and hopefully their parents if they're a minor, to ascertain whether this book is appropriate! If it were up to me, I would have categorized it as New Adult, because I don't think "spice" level alone should be what separates the categories.
I think based on the themes and depth of the exploration of the themes, it came across as much more YA to me, but I can see New Adult. If I were to pick it up after being told it's Adult, though, I'd be pretty annoyed. (But YA and Adult and New Adult are pretty subjective in their boundaries)
I love this breakdown. I've read nahid's comprehensive review on GR (Goodreads) because several pages in I went, "Relatable, as an Asian once lived as a minority in a western country, but also, you're going to go on like this, girlfriend?" 💀
I am deeply confused about the inclusion of Rome here. Why not use a fictionalized nation? It seems to muddy the messaging, especially since the Roman empire was never really a colonizer of China. The historical references come from Japan's colonization of China, and while Rome did engage in colonization, it wasn't nearly this kind. It makes no sense and does NOT compel me.
Roman names sound cool? But in all seriousness, the author probably choose the Romans so that she could mix diffenerent types of colonialist violence (opium and unit 731) from different time periods, done by different countries without it looking weird. But as a result it just looks lazy.
THANK YOU!! I'm like 80% through, and I honestly can't stand how much Ruying harps on Pangu being so weak compared to the Romans, it's so overwrought in a "we GET IT" way. Like yeah, this fantasy China doesn't have medicine or gunpowder (but they do have fireworks) or mechanical weapons that can go against guns and missiles, as if anti-colonial revolutionaries just give up whenever the colonizer has "better" weapons than them. It was so aggravating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think what makes me annoyed on a meta scale is why this book? There are so many querrying authors that are trying to publish who will never see the light of day. I dunno, I'm just really sus on why this was the book a literary agent and editors and marketing teams decided to go with. My thing is a lot of the majority of bipoc books that seem to be selected by publishers are inherently tied to colonialism in one way or another. My thing is that of course bipoc authors have every right to write that kind of story if they so chose to do so, but if they do, it needs to be nuisanced, layered, and sensitive, and compassionate, yet brutal. But a bipoc individual shouldn't have to write that kind of story just to be published either because at that point it feels like, yes we were colonialized and are effected by colonialization, but it's kind of insulting, to me personally, to say that bipoc individuals, all that there is to them and thier identity is because of that. I hope that makes sense lol
it makes a lot of sense! I actually read Yellowface by RF Kuang last year and despite it being a bit of a satirical/dramatic story, Kuang brings up some of the exact concerns you do here! One nice thing though is that these aren't the only stories BIPOC authors are telling, especially in other genres (romance has had some good titles recently from what I've seen from other channels that review romance!) but I agree it would be nice to see some more variety in the fantasy space.
I started following Molly on TikTok a while back bc I was inspired by her story and wanted to support her, but her marketing/sm presence is sooo repetitive to the point where I’ve honestly been put off this book. Every post is either about how her agent dropped her or a summary of the plot that uses the same phrases over and over again. I wish authors didn’t have so much pressure to drum up publicity for themselves, marketing departments need to be doing more imo
agreed that publishers should be doing better to market their authors, especially debuts! I poked through her Instagram while researching for this video and I agree, it was very repetitive. And unlike some other authors, it didn't feel like I got a sense of who SHE is beyond her book.
yeah I had to unfollow her bc I got annoyed with her saying how "asian fantasy wouldn't sell" and I get it happened a few years ago but I'm like you're not the first asian fantasy series.
What the heck, I saw this book at Barnes and Noble today and flipped open the summary to read it. Now RU-vid is recommending me this video? Someone's watching me?!😂
I'm a little sad this is the first video I'm seeing by you, but ONLY because I was excited about this book. Your model is adorable! I love your whole aesthetic. :)
All other things aside. I'm genuinely like? the author sees this as zutara? did they not watch the source series or do they just completely not understand the source material and why those characters were good. romance completely aside. Like what is the vibe theyre going for here fr. Idc about romance or romance stories but from a character perspective this is just completely bizarre and empty. Like all other things about the series itself, the author saying "this is based off X" then not knowing X at all. It feels like she solely read fanfics and interpreted 2014 fanon as canon characterization. At this point the MC is just so bad it brings the entire thing down.
And it's frustrating she promoted this as Zutara when Zuko gets a redemption arc. This implies Antony gets redeemed after all he's done. But to deflect againts "colonizer romance" allegations, she says Antony becomes the villain in the next book and intends to switch to Baihu as the male lead. So was Zutara just bait? People even noticed the marketing changed from promoting this book as "enemies to lovers" to "childhood friend love interest" as soon as the first ARC reviews came in.
@@pauieeepau idk what this is, but it ain't Zutara 😭 the pivot is definitely felt, and the sequel is called "To Kill a Monstrous Prince" ...but like that could also be referring to Valentin, or even their third brother who is still in Rome. So it doesn't feel like true disavowing of Antony yet.
@@leahharlann Definitely not like Zutara. I think Molly also spoiled more stuff than just the title, saying Antony would be the antagonist in the next book. I also noticed the title could mean the other princes lol🤭. I almost mentioned in my previous comment that she could lie about the spoilers. No one can prove she only changed direction to Baihu as love interest due to the backlash if she does make the change, nor is she actually obligated to follow through with her spoilers. Antony could still be the endgame in her next book. So I agree.
I don't think it really matters whether she was intending to make Baihu the ultimate endgame from the start or said it due to backlash. It doesn't change the fact that the first book is focused solely on the relationship between Ruying and Antony.
From a worldbuilding standpoint it’s crazy that science alone would be enough to overpower and colonise a people with the power to just take away life itself … if I were RuYing I would be leading a rebellion lol
there's so little worldbuilding that there's no satisfying explanation. There's a throwaway line about Ruying's people being so reliant on magic that they never bothered to develop science and technology, but that doesn't really make sense to me. Her people DIE from overusing their magic, and even if everyone used to have magic it's been several generations of their numbers dying out, so wouldn't people have HAD to develop ways of doing things without magic for a long time now???
@@leahharlann exactly… And if anything they could disperse magic usage amongst members of the rebellion to reduce the effect of life loss from their powers … it’s like the author picked all the wrong options in a long line of writing prompts
bc this book marketed itself as a the book to read if you’re a fan of zutara i can’t help but think about the last air bender parallels, bc fire bending is p weak practical wise they focused on industrialising which made colonisation an easy win compared to earth benders and water benders who moreso relied on their bending for their infrastructure and technology, it works in ATLAs case but bc of the magic system in this book i feel like it doesn’t make sense as to why the people that the romans r colonising don’t have basic technology or have some sort of edge due to magic
What a lovely review. Very comprehensive, and I quite enjoyed how you were able to talk about different aspects of the book negatively without it sounding like a "rant" review. The recommendations of other books at the end was especially helpful. I had been interested in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and was disappointed to hear it seemed like a flop, though I didn't know much more other than the frustrations readers had with the colonizer romance. This really helped me to see all the issues of the book, and I think I'l go check out your alternate recommendations instead! Thanks again for sharing and I look forward to seeing more of your reviews in the future =)
unrelated to the vid but omg, your vid popped up on my recommended and i loveeeee the concept of a book vtuber 🥹🥹🥹 your models also super cute, cant wait for your next vids!!
Thank you for making this video about the book! I found out about it after the review bombing exposé, and found it interesting based on the synopsis, but I'm glad I've yet to buy it, because the worldbuilding doesn't seems as interesting as it could be! I feel like there was potential, but there's also the love interest Prince and the protagonist as a whole... Honestly, the protagonist sounds like a nightmare, so any romance with her as half of the pair seems underwhelming- but choosing the manipulative Prince, the one fighting for political power to eventually become the ruler of an empire? The same empire who massacres, tortures and experiments on her people?? Yeah, I think Baihu is better off alone or with the twin sister who hasn't shown very problematic traits yet, living his best life and leading the rebellion
First video of yours I've seen-- I really love how in depth and thoughtful your analysis is, even upon a single read. (Also your vtuber design is very cute and your voice is very pleasant to listen to ^u^)
I'm back rewatching this review, and I'm suddenly struck that...there's no tangible reason for Ruying to distrust the rebels, aside from Meiya's opian addiction being kiiiind of related, is there? Which-it feels weird that Ruying would be mad at the rebels (her own people) more than the Romans who brought the drug into Pangu. In fact, I found Ruying's page-one distrust/outright hatred for her own people (outside of her family) to be SO strange as a character choice. It's not like she's a pariah in her city, or that tons of her people are siding with the Romans out of self-preservation; she seems to just...really dislike other Pangu people?? I dunno if I'm reading too much into it, but I can't help noticing the subtle ways she elevates the Romans when talking about them (internally), which makes her whole "grrr I wanna kill the Romans so bad" shtick feel Incredibly hollow.
If I center her coward trait, it makes some sense that she would feel negatively towards the rebels; I recall a line or two where she thinks of them as fools pointlessly throwing away their lives, since they can't defeat the superior technology of Rome. I do agree that the way it's written in many places is very odd though. It's that whole vibe of Ruying feeling like two characters in one: the lone wolf girlboss and the cowardly traitor. It's one of those aspects that really highlights her hypocrisy.
I haven't read it yet so I'm not completely certain on how Ruying's magic actually works, but your description reminds me of the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception" from the "Garden of Sinners" and "Tsukihime". In those series, death is manifested in these nigh invisible lines or dots that are wrapped around a living being, object, or even intangible concepts. The main characters are able to see the "Lines of Death" or "Points of Death" through their magical eyes, which are the "Mystic Eyes" I've mentioned earlier--and by being able to see these lines or points, they are able to cut or stab through these lines and, well, kill the living being, object, or intangible concept.
oh my gosh, you knew EXACTLY what I was talking about!! I love the Garden of Sinners movies, it was one of the examples I was thinking of when I mentioned "other stories/media that use the imagery of strings representing life force or souls"! 😄
@@leahharlann wow I'm glad! Garden of Sinners isn't the most popular of the Nasuverse franchise, especially in comparison to Fate, but it really is a good series. I'm glad I made that connection haha But yeah, speaking of the book, I'm really curious which direction they'll take Antony's character; doubling down on his 'sympathetic' qualities, or doubling down on his villainy. And as for his backstory, I also wonder, depending on which path they'll take his character, if there's more to it; like maybe his parents were abusive, or they convinced him to kill them because they wanted a better life for him. Things like that, to make him seem more "sympathetic". Apart from Tamlin, your description of Antony reminds me of the Darkling, and how he appeared to be the main love interest before their darker nature is revealed--it's especially more notable because the Darkling, like Antony, is an authority figure above Alina. However, the Darkling was essentially the head of the revered or "good" Grisha that Alina became a part of. Or atleast, they were on the same side of a conflict, so it made more sense that Alina would trust him.
@@lavendermarshmallowplant3229 you're so right about the Darkling connection! I never read the books and only watched season 1 of the Netflix show so I didn't make that connection. The power imbalance between the two is definitely paralleled. But if Chang tries to many Antony any more sympathetic than I for SURE won't be reading any further.
This was such a good review! Despite being over an hour long, i liked how you described your thoughts and criticisms of the book in a clear and concise way that didn't feel repetitive to me. Also, for your captions I found that some of the names of the characters had different spellings? like Ruying was called “ruining” while another character was called "Talha" or "Tallulah"? However I still appreciate the subtitling of a video as long as this one, and as a first time viewer, I enjoy this review :)
Thank you! Yes, the caption generator in my software isn't that good when it comes to names, but I was so burnt out by the time I finished editing that I didn't go back and fix them like I usually would 😫now that I know someone actually appreciates them I will definitely qc them in the future!! ❤
I loved the Poppy War trilogy and RF Kuang! But I didn't directly criticize Chang's inspiration because 1. as a white woman it is not my place to do so, but also 2. it was clearly a very personal thing that is rooted in both her heritage and her direct family. So I wanted to focus my opinions on the work itself and not let it stray too much into targeting the author.
@llve-zzzsh I get you, but lots of poc out there just rather people shut up and listen to them, there’s no ‘right’ way to be supportive here. No need to call Leah an ineffective ally for it
@llve-zzzsh I definitely have my own opinions, I just don't feel that it's my place to take up space in online discourse about it when it's not about me. I would rather uplift the voices of people who ARE directly impacted or are authorities on the topic. If it was about women's issues or neurodivergency or ace rep you'd best believe I would be vocal about it!
@llve-zzzsh I truly get what you're saying, but in cases such as this we DO NOT need white people speaking over the very vocal minorities who were the very ones raising the issues with this book in the first place only to be viciously mobbed by the author's (mainly white) fangirls on socia media. Women of colour ARE discussing this, they STARTED bringing it to the general bookish public's attention, they do not need white people to drown their voices any more since the author's continuous declarations are already taking care of that. What white allies need to do is uplift those people's voices and, like Leah did very well here, provide her own perspective as someone who's read the book, so she can reach her own audience and make more people aware of this topic.
I've commented on a lot of these TGUWG videos with various issues I have with the book, everything from how odd it is that "opiun" is the final name for the "opium" substitute to how frustrating it is that the enemy country is named the exact same thing as a country that really existed in our real world (in a fantasy fictional book) with no real reason? But the thing I will never get over is that 6-month time skip. There is only one way I can see this working: if Ruying was captured and forced to work for the prince in the prologue, and then chapter ONE starts by saying that 6 months have passed. Prologues are a good place to put past events or heavy foreshadowing that will make sense later, and I don't understand why half a year was suddenly dropped out of the narrative mid-book. Either that time skip should've been between the prologue and the first chapter of the narrative (which could trim some of the fat and allow us to learn more about the world through Ruying's (experienced) eyes and also allow us to get to the point a lot faster than the last 10%!) or it should've been completely erased, having the entire first book be about building the relationship (and inevitablely the "betrayal") between the two leads. Edit to add: I think that this book is less a "colonizer romance" than it is "romanticizing colonizers". It's not intended to be endgame, sure, and I can agree that depicting villainous characters as "seductive" to protagonists can be very compelling (though tbh not here, Ruying kinda just went in head-first to colonizer sympathy bc he's hot ig), but constantly talking about how he's not evil and how he's tortured and has a tragic past, and blahblahblah just makes it seem like colonizers are truly people we should feel bad for. I get it, hurt people hurt people sometimes. That doesn't excuse the hurt they cause. I really dislike that Chang seems to be making Antony out to be a tortured and redeemable character when he has done nothing to redeem himself whatsoever. Murdering and colonizing people and getting them addicted to drugs to suppress the population is honestly completely irredeemable in my eyes. The best thing this character can do for the people he's hurt in this book is *die*, and frankly idgaf if he apologizes on his deathbed, it's not good enough. God this book frustrates me. Beautiful cover, interesting ideas, but gosh the execution-- P.S. LEAH I LOVE YOUR V-TUBER MODEL IT'S SO CUTE (I love seeing v-tubers in the booktube sphere, pngtubers and v-tubers have really helped people who maybe don't feel comfortable with their faces or don't want their identities being on the internet for everyone to find and see, and I love seeing them infiltrate any and all spaces!)
Okay, I hope I am not super late. I just finished reading To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods right now and I just have so many issues with it. First of all, let me just say three things: 1. I really wanted to like this book 2. There are spoilers ahead cause we are talking. 3. These are all my opinions and I'm open to change, so please if you don't agree with something, feel free to let me know. One, the lack of world building. So, I don't know whether this is a common thing, but I usually have a hard time reading the world building section of fantasy because, even though I know it is an important part, I much rather would like to read the actual story. This book made me appreciate those long paragraphs of world information which I used to be forced to sit through in other fantasy books because, Good Lord, I had such a hard time imagining stuff here. When Ruying was talking about the various other kingdoms, I was sitting there like, damn, I would really like a map right now like how Poppy War by R F Kuang did. That made reading PW, so much easier, especially the wars and the battle strategies which various characters spoke about. It would also have been a very good way for readers to keep up with the various Empires. I hope they include a map in the second or third book. Second, I disliked the character building or lack their of. Yang Ruying kept on and on about how much she likes her sister and her friend Taoha, especially when Taoha is killed, and I'm sitting there like, I don't care. I don't know any of these people, Taoha was in, maximum, 2 scenes. All I know about her was from Ruying POV how good and brave she is. But why won't you show that to me? That would have also give the author a chance to expand the world and build it, hence bringing back my first point. Ru kept going on and on about how much she loves her family and all, but the scenes with her family and friends, other than Baihu and Meiya (to some extent), felt so hollow. But I really liked how the Emperor of Sihai's dynamic and death were handled. That was good, I felt something when the Emperor died. This brings me to my Third point. Some of the informations given to us felt so repetitive. Like I get it, you are in a bad spot and I know what's at stake, but why am I being fed this information again and again? Like I actually love when certain informations are given to me twice in books because I am a forgetful person but not at every step. Fourth, I just cannot cheer for Antony as a love interest. At this point only a miracle can save him in my eyes. I hope that miracle happens in Book 2. I know totally random, but his and Ruying's dymanic kind of reminds me of The Darkling and Alina from The Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo. But somehow Antony felt worse to me. I had some love for The Darkling at the end, but I have no feelings for Antony, UNLESS, again, some miracle happens in Book 2. Fifth, the stakes were set so high but the actions and the stuff that happened around the stakes did not at all feel climactic and grand, if you all know what I mean. The things that were happening did not meet the height stakes which were set. Last, and this is just me being very nitpicky, you made her an assassin for crying out loud. Why didn't you show how she got into people's houses or her in action as an assassin? I was really looking forward to that. Like what are you scared of? But I must say, the ending was good. It got me hooked for the next book. It is just her debut so I really hope and also I'm sure that her writing will improve as it is not bad, not bad at all. But anyway, these are my thoughts.
I really feel like newer writers should challenge themselves by only writing in 3rd person limited, VERY limited. As in even the perspective character's inner thoughts are opaque to the narrator. Worldbuilding can only be done via direct observations of surroundings, actions characters perform, and dialog.
I think it's an interesting workshop challenge! But at the end of the day, I feel like agents and editors and all the people that were in between this book's initial and final versions should have done a better job helping this story reach its best form too, it's not just the author anymore.
Asians on Twitter called this book out for it's colonizer romance but people were acting like they were bullying her. I think Rome is supposed to be inspired by Japanese or British colonization of China, which make this AWFUL. If my kid glorified the same empires that oppressed my people I'd have to disown them because this is embarrassing and disgraceful.
Honestly with how much she took from U731, it makes me wonder why she didn't just... include the Japanese and Russians as the antagonists. It changes nothing really, especially since she gave Rome tech thats a couple centuries further down the line
I was surprised that the colonizer was Rome (or pseudo-Rome) and it seemed mayhaps inspired by that one Chinese town that prided itself as founded by Roman survivors or descendants of Roman veterans at the Battle of Carrhae.
For another book rec, The Traitor Baru Cormorant does a much better job at the "colonized person works for colonizers and does morally questionable things" plotline
one thing that might (and probably is) be nitpicky but why the author made an alternative version of china gave it another name etc but didn't do the same with with the rome and just called it by its real name? was she afraid the readers wouldn't get that the colonizers were "the roman empire but with guns"? 😭
Besides the fact that *it wasnt even about the romans* with U-731, could we not get like, space Europe? Just vaguely European shaped aliens is fine if you can't actually commit to just making the country China
Interesting. So after all the hype with Cait Corrain...this book turns out to be panned amongst readers. I was thinking a lot of Booktubers were manipulating the public just for income, and I was betting that some of these authors caught up in these scandals would turn out to be mid to low quality. And Im just going by what you all are saying in the comments here, and there have been some very thoughtful criticisms here. But I think the book tube/book tok/book twitter circuit is exploited too much by both authors who know they have to do anything to get their names remembered so their publishers can get their investment back and by influencers who need an easy side gig and don't care about toying with your emotions.
I don't think it's fair to accuse Booktubers of "manipulating the public just for income" with this. Many of the most prominent content creators who covered the Cait Corrain incident were promoting the authors that were victims to try to reduce the harm done by CC. Authors of color already receive little to no support from publishers, so many booktubers try to influence positive change and encourage the industry to have better representation and support these authors properly. And yes, oftentimes we readers can feel misled by the way a book is marketed, but I assign fault with the publisher more often than the author, because one entity has a wealth of marketing and PR expertise at their fingertips and the other does NOT. Authors are doing whatever they can in the hopes the mysterious algorithm will favor them and show their books to more people, because their career very literally depends on it. They are simply playing the hand that has been dealt to them.
You can't trust Goodreads genre or marketing category tags because they populate from what users tag it as and there's some pretty well known examples of GoodReads users getting it wrong. But, that being said, this book appears to be marketed as Adult in the USA and as YA in the UK so this book in particular has a lot of confusion even at the publisher level.
Maybe they should make the protagonist become a villain, that might be interesting lol 😝 this book sounds like I should read this book so I could learn what not to do when I’m doing writing
Hi Leah! I really enjoyed this dissection video you did, especially the parts about personality/value inconsistencies! I'm also a novice cross-cultural writer from China; may I offer my own first time selfpub cyberpunk/science fantasy novel for you to riff?
Kindof reminds me of Red Queen, some similar ideas with the princes from the “master race” both making passes at the MC who was from the lessers (and they were both aware of her). I liked that one OK but ultimately didn’t want to read the next book after finishing
@@amerrywolfI read the entire Red Queen series last year, including the companion with short stories and other content, and it was so awful 😭 interesting concept, pretty terrible in every other way but I refused to quit lol
I dnf the book before the romance so after seeing all the reviews, it sounds like the wriitng is all monologue and not showing the romance or the assassin scenes. The time skip also makes no sense bc we are just told they are in love. I think the story would work if she was already an assassin and join the rebellion to protect her sister since her sister joined and feels conflicted over her growing feelings for Anthony then realized he's just as bad. I think if the author has to spoil the endgame then her romance writing isnt great or didn't put more into the love triangle. Shatter me series also change love interests but least the love triangle was interesting
Yup, I've read series where the love interest changes and sometimes it's a hard sell but I eventually see the vision. Chang tried to sell us on a relationship but didn't really lay enough groundwork for me to give it a real chance.
@@leahharlanni agree. At least in acotar, there was 1 scene that hinted rhysand was her mate then they got together in the next book. I feel like the author wanted to use the popular tropes like morally grey and enemies to lovers but didnt execute the romance well enough. The dark romance fans would be into it but dark romance are definitely more spicy and adult which is not the target audience.
@@cardcgirl I've enjoyed a dark romance or two in my day, but usually the appeal there is that one or both characters KNOW they're in love with a terrible person, but Ruying gaslit herself so even that is missing!
🏛 i got the audiobook but i've only listened to like chp 2. my first thoughts was "oh ruying is one of those pessimistic people who basically gave up without trying" which i mean, fair enough, the average person isn't gonna be brave enough to join a rebellion in such a situation. but for a MC who in all the promo stuff we're told she's morally gray and willing to do bad things for good reasons, things weren't clicking right away. i think i'll still try listening to the book, i don't mind spoilers but omg Baihu, he was actually the first character i found info on when I searched a bit about this book. and i accidentally thought he was the love interest cuz I hadn't seen Antony mentioned yet. i really thought the conflict was- Baihu works for the colonizers and Ruying hates him for it. and then maybe she'd join a rebel cause or something?? and maybe she'd try to save him & he'd get a redemption. but then i saw Antony and was like ok 🤨 granted, idk if my idea would be any better for a romance with this setting
wait....you're kinda cooking here??? I feel like THAT would have been more Zutara-coded than....whatever this was 👀 Baihu peaced out so early but I would have vastly preferred him as the ML in this book 😭
20% should have been the romance, and then the discovery of the 731 unit, so the rest of the book/books could be bringing down the prince/Roman empire. Like.
That would certainly be true if this were a standalone, but it's meant to be a trilogy so of course the overarching story will be about fighting the Roman empire. I do agree that only about 20% should have been the romance though, because more of the book should have been a very un-romantic portrayal of the power imbalance and manipulation between Antony and Ruying.
@@leahharlann to span across multiple books, the romance should have been twenty percent, and the rest of that book, would be her falling to his manipulations and doing bad things for him (like expand upon the six month absence instead of romance), then the 731 reveal close to the end. It’s just. There were so many ways to improve it. Like, to take away the romance and still have your overthrowing of the prince/empire. Esp if she was going to kill the prince. Why was he pretty jade-green eyes for so long?? Why did he have a pov? Idk. They made choices.
"Chapter 1: Ruying walks down a street. That's it" 🥲 I didn't even think about that until you said it so clearly lol This book was giving me "go on girl, give us nothing!" vibes and I feel sad that I'm glad I stopped reading it...
It's so sad because I don't even think my expectations were too high or anything, I knew this was a debut! One thing I don't think I explicitly mentioned was that I was surprised at how SHORT this novel was, especially considering how little happens. If Chang and her editor had just tightened up her prose and put in some real action (like hello, the SIX MONTH TIME SKIP???) the pacing would have been so much better and I might have sympathized with Ruying some more. Alas 🥲
🏛I didn't know anything about this book wether it would be about the story or drama but I did see the cover of it floating around and thought it was very pretty xD I think the discussion surrounding whether or not it's a colonizer romance is very interesting though and you really laid out your thoughts very succinctly, instant sub!
🏛 I saw a lot of the drama and one thing related to the book is that a lot of the people who covered the book urged people to help the authors by giving them good reviews (at least from what I remember) so the ratings may be inflated 😅
I tend to take Goodreads reviews with a grain of salt anyway, but I was absolutely interested in this book before the scandal so that almost made it MORE disappointing when it didn't live up to my hopes 🥲 like girrrrrrl I WAS PULLING FOR YOU!! I know some were saying to do that in order to counter the fake negative reviews, so hopefully they cancelled out? Like I said in the video, definitely encourage people to see what people actually SAY in their reviews so you can see if their rating is based on the book itself or just whatever drama happened this week 😆
🏛 Thank you for this review! I felt like you had very clear and reasonable points and everything that put you off would 100% have put me off as well. 😬
