The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi, a rant review

This book was bitten by Dan Brown and starts to transform! Please send help!

I mean this book definitely has Dan Brown vibe. Especially in the part where "a historian" starts to explain everyone in the room what Babylon tower is. Sorry, it is hilarious and has the same energy as the main character of the "Inferno" explaining who Dante is. I understand that was done for worldbuilding, but it was so unnatural because it's absolutely clear everyone in that room knew the story. 

The premise of this book looked like everything I usually like: fantasy in 19th century, eccentric characters of very diverse background, a team of criminals who steal things that were taken from other by force (and of course the theme of colonialism could give this book another dimension, making it deeper and more interesting). I expected the fantasy 19th-century version of The Leverage series, and I was so wrong... 

All I got are bland characters, badly explained worldbuilding, uninteresting plot, and extremely cringy dialogues.

Characters are just badly written. I've just finished the book and I can't tell anything about their personalities, except Hypnos being a petty goth child from 2007. I'm so confused, it's a long book, but somehow the author managed to say us nothing about characters, they even barely have any backstory except Severin, because he is a local guy with childhood trauma, and Laila, whose backstory could be super interesting, but wasn't developed enough. Anyway, the award for being the blandest bitch goes to Tristan (well, this was a fierce competition, because all the characters were bland). He feels like Tumblr OC, uwu quirky baby with no personality. It seems like Tristan only exist to be this cute little thing near Severin and a damsel in distress. Tbh initially I planned to rant about all the characters specifically, but I can't, because my complaints about each character would be the same. 

The heist plot didn't seem very engaging to me. I didn't care about characters so I didn't give a fuck if they are going to win. Also, the heist itself became uninteresting, because all the time characters conveniently pull new magical tricks out of their asses and conveniently stop doing this when the plot tells them it's time to lose. It looked like a game walkthrough. I don't want to spoiler but everything that going in after heist ended is pure garbage, It literally makes no sense to the plot and is need only to create a cliffhanger for a second book in the series. 

The most disconnect I feel with this story because of its lack of authenticity on different levels. There are tons of explanations for readers that seem to be unnecessary for characters (all the time I was like "well, maybe we should learn more about magic and characters instead of reading the retelling of wikipedia"). Riddles and puzzles look too convenient like they are a part of a quest game. Characters claimed to be misfits from the 19th century, but they often act like modern teenagers or modern adults. A wanted to say that it doesn't seem like their personalities were formed under the influence of racist, sexist, xenophobic society with huge class inequality, but to be honest, neither of them has enough formed personality. I can understand this if the author doesn't want to make any commentary on society, but Roshani Chokshi definitely makes a lot of commentary on it. I think it's just because characters aren't developed enough, they don't have their own voices and sounds like some random modern people. Modern American people, I guess? Because actually, 3 of 6 characters aren't French, they were raised in different cultures, but they don't feel like people from different cultures. 

In the end, this book became the exact thing it was supposed to fight. I've read the author's note at the end of the book, and I was like... what the fuck?! The author intended to deromanticize the 19th century and show it's problems, but her characters live in a luxury hotel, they don't need to work to feed themselves, girls can buy tons of beautiful dresses, they have creative freedom, all of their friends are super accepting and never said an insensitive thing in their lives. This shit is romanticized as fuck. Especially regarding sexism and gender inequality.

1 out of 5 stars. 

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

This is another book that doesn't have a solid plot. It's a story of Indian immigrants in the US, the main character of the book is Gogol Ganguli, a first-generation immigrant, but we also see this experience from the perspective of his parents, who moved in the US as adults and another woman of Gogol's generation, Mushumi. 

It includes different experiences of being an immigrant and being captured between two cultures. The conflict between generations becomes more intense because of their different immigrant experience and different relationships with culture: while parents who moved to the US as adults miss India, its culture and their relatives, children want to be part of the culture of a place where they are grown up, and they associate India with annoyingly long trips to Kolkata with parents to their relatives they know almost nothing about. Gogol also has a "ridiculous" name that isn't even a name, it's a surname of Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. I like how Jhumpa Lahiri made Gogol pin all his problems to his weird name and become obsessed with it. The book also discusses, how name affects its owner. Can Gogol change his life after changing the name? 

Also, I like how clearly you can see this disconnect between parents and children in this book. They aren't bad parents or bad children, they just have different experiences. For example, Ashima, Gogol's mother, can't understand why he doesn't miss his parents while he is in uni, because she at his age always missed her parents. They were hundreds of miles away in Kolkata, and they could communicate only through letters. 

I feel odd about Gogol's connection with American culture. He always encounters only its nice and progressive part. There are insensitive people, but overall these people seem normal. There is a part of the novel where he is completely charmed by the family of his girlfriend and always compares them to his own family, and in his mind, it's a question of culture, but in fact, these families have very different social standing. He easily can date a girl from an American family which is as patriarchal as his own, with tons of annoying relatives and awful weddings with 300 guests. Maybe it is done purposefully, to show, how some immigrants/children of immigrants tend to demonize their own culture and think of it as old-fashioned, boring, and restrictive, comparing it only with the most attractive parts of the culture of the country they are living. 

I feel this book despite of good writing was a bit basic. Yes, it includes different experiences but all of them are from this narrow social circle of wealthy educated upper-middle-class immigrants. I don't think it's a bad thing, because the book is focused on one family, but... I don't know. I think there could be more. 

And tbh I want to read a story of Mushumi. It seems like she has way more deep inner conflict and was strongly traumatized by her parent's actions. 

The writing in this book is a bit unusual. It feels like someone's narration, so there is a distance between you and the characters. I think it can be off-putting to some readers, but I like it and overall this book was for me super easy to read. 

4 out of 5 stars.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

Omg, I'm so glad I found this book! It was a recommendation from Anastasia Zavozova, Russian translator of Donna Tartt. She said this book reminds her of Dovlatov's writing, and I agree with this statement: Elif Batuman build her book with some witty quirky anecdotes, but it doesn't seem like a quirkiness for the sake of quirkiness, it's just her way to catch a spirit of the period of life: it's character's first year of university when everything seems new and weird.

You definitely shouldn't expect any solid meaty story from this book, it isn't written to be plot-driven, it reads like a diary with scattered memories about the main character's everyday activities.

Here is a plot: Selin, a naive American girl of Turkish descent, enrolls in Harvard, and here is her first year of study, her first love and her trip to Europe to teach Hungarian kids the English language. That's all.

I think Elif Batuman is very good in catching this very specific period in life when you go to college, and you have a bunch of very different courses, you try to connect them to your everyday life and sometimes fails miserably, and sometimes you overthink everything. And also you are a teenager in a new and different environment: you find new friends, you start to listen/watch/read things because they listen/watch/read these things, you are very awkward, you want to be just like all other normal people and in the same time you want to be quirky, different and very deep. And, of course, you need to write a pretentious text with references to classics. As a person, who was studying literature and linguistics in university, I can say this novel feels painfully familiar. I hate to be called out like this!

Seline's correspondence with Ivan, her crush, is hilarious: they tried to be deep and quirky so passionately that they completely lost all the meaning in their letters (but of course they think their correspondence is super deep and meaningful). And you see how it's funny and at the same time is really important to the Selin, because despite all pretentious writing she honestly in love with Ivan and treasures their correspondence.

There is no solid romantic plot, it's just this state on unsureness when Selin doesn't know what she wants from her life and her relationships with Ivan that stuck in a weird limbo between dating and friendship because they aren't actually dating. This is a mess, but Selin is 18, and Ivan just a bit over 20, so it is an understandable mess.

Another thing you shouldn't expect from this book: well-written side characters. The Idiot purely focused on Selin and her inner struggles, Selin writes about her friends and classmates, but in a way that is more common for a diary not for a novel.

I think, if you want to like this book, you should read it as a (fictional) diary/memoir, not as a novel.

Also, Elif Batuman's writing is extremely beautiful in its simplicity, I have so much pure aesthetic pleasure reading it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This is an exact type of story I love: family drama, teenagers, dark secrets from the past, and a confrontation between interesting female characters. This novel feels like a classic realistic novel with a proper social commentary that still has a solid plot and well-written characters. Another thing that reminds me of a classic realistic novel is how Celeste Ng writes her characters: she gives us regular characters with their regular problems and adds a lot of depth to them. She shows us characters from different perspectives and doesn't paint them with only one color. It feels like reading this solid 19th-early 20th century novel with great potential for holywars: if you've ever seen people tearing each other apart because of War and Peace or The Forsyte Saga, you understand what I mean. 

Celeste Ng goes in the tons of gray areas and doesn't give readers an answer who is right and who is wrong. She doesn't try to simplify complicated problems or magically solve them with the right deeds or happy coincident. 

It's also is one of the main themes of the book: there is no this exactly right thing to do, every choice has its consequences even if it seems to be a good choice to make. 

Elena has this idea about "living a rightful life", she definitely thinks that the just-world hypothesis is true, and if you do the right choices, your life will be perfect. And from her point of view there is just one way to be happy, and there are clearly right and clearly wrong decisions without any gray areas between them (and Celeste Ng shows us how there are a lot of gray areas in person's life). I think Elena mad at Mia not only because Mia is different, and there is a classic conflict between stable bourgeois life and unstable creative freedom, but also because Mia does a lot of "wrong" choices and somehow still didn't die under the bridge. And Elena's hunting for Mia's past for me is just her way to find something horrible and shameful in Mia's past, to prove herself right. I think Elena was so eager to believe that Pearl did an abortion because it's exactly the thing that happens with people who aren't "doing right things". 

Mia's and Elena's characters are are strongest in the book. I think children's characters may be developed more. Anyway, I really like how Celeste Ng subverted our expectations with Trip and Moody and how she didn't turn Trip into a regular jerk because I feel like there is a trend in love triangles with "this bad lustful guy who only wants to fuck the girl" and "this pure good guy who has a deep emotional connection with a girl". Sometimes teenagers are just horny, and a girl wants this hot guy with no personality, and it's ok. 

Also, it's interesting how the book was built around maternity as a theme. It isn't plot-driven or character-driven, it seems to be created for discussion about maternity, and I don't mean it in a bad way. On the contrary, I extremely fascinated by how Celeste Ng can create a good narrative and believable characters without deviating from the main theme. 

5 out of 5 stars.

The Plotters by Kim Un-su

I picked a Russian cover because I like it more, and I think it suits better for the book.

My bookshelf for Asian readathon in local audiobook provider is like "50 shades of heavy themes", so I chose something the least heavy: a noir thriller by South Korean author (yes, I have questionable reading choices). Usually, I don't read noir books, I've read a couple of them long ago and I remember all of them being "here is our broody protagonist drinking whiskey in the bar at night while it is raining outside, he is depressed because femme fatal betrayed him and all the gangs are on his tale, he has no friends and now only his toxic masculinity is his drinking buddy". 

But this shit is good. 

It's a story about a conflict in the sphere of contract assassinations in Seoul. A younger crime boss wants to take over an older crime boss, and our main character, Reseng, a hitman working for an older crime boss (who is also his stepfather) is caught in the middle of this conflict. All this drama is mixed with beautifully absurd scenes, where criminals are like "Oh, I remember these good old days when we killed powerful politicians, and now we kill prostitutes, what a shame!", and this scene where the main character sitting in the room with his target, they drink together, and his target tells him stories about his father. Kim Un-su's humor mostly dark, and there are a lot of scenes full of irony (I presume he subtly mocks morbid seriousness of traditional noir).

And now let's talk about characters. 

On the one hand, Reseng is a typical noir male character: he is a tough guy who takes weapons with him everywhere, he has an emotional capacity of a snail, he drinks and smokes. On the other hand, the author interestingly presents him. Reseng is this passive character who just lives in the way other people want him to live: he follows orders by Old Raccoon, his stepfather and boss, on the work he needs to do everything plotters want him to do because they plan every high-ranking contract assassination. There is his flashback, where he lies down in the small town for months, and he dates a woman, his coworker from his temporary job on factory, and he just numbly follows her way of living. Kim Un-su pushes Reseng out of his regular life to make him do something different, to think out of the box - and he has an existential crisis now. Kim Un-su leaves Reseng with himself, without other people to look on, and there is an extremely rare occasion when nobody gives Reseng orders. It turns out to be very interesting. 

Other characters are very vivid and weird in a good way. They are like these memorable characters from movies, they seem to be a bit of caricature, but I think it's a part of Kim Un-su's writing style and suits very well with the text. Also, the second part of the book has a very interesting female character, I definitely didn't expect this from a noir thriller. Tbh I was more worried about her than about the main character (well, mostly because I was sure how Reseng will end up, and I was right). 

Kim Un-su is particularly good in depicting criminals in the way that neither demonizes them nor excuse their behavior: all characters of the book seem to be normal people, not some sadistic assholes, but at the same time they are criminals who justify their actions by saying that they are just doing their work, and there always will be organized crime, so why they should be bothered by their actions? Also, Kim Un-su doesn't divide characters to "our good honorable criminals" and "their bad despicable criminals", and shows us how crimes with "honorable" purpose are as much damaging for a character as "regular" ones (of course none of these characters are poor guys who just stole a loaf of bread, they are on the top of the organized crime food chain).

Of course, there is violence in the book, and fights are pretty graphic, but at the same time, Kim Un-su doesn't seem to savor it to shock a reader. The pace of the book seems to be pretty slow in the first half, and I think it's done purposefully, because it is a character-driven story, and the author makes us know Reseng more. 

Also, Russian translation has an extremely colorful swearing, I was pleasantly surprised to see it instead of regular 2-3 common swearing words. 

5 out of 5 stars, I really loved it.

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Sōji Shimada

I don't even know if it's appropriate to call this book a novel, because it's a literary game. and a story just a convenient package for a riddle. 

It's hard to make a review of this book because it doesn't try to meet our expectations for a novel. It barely has any characters and a plot. Well, technically there are two amateur detectives who investigate the case and bunch of suspects and witnesses, but it's pretty obvious that the author didn't care to make them interesting and well-developed characters or make their investigation exciting. They are just chess pieces for one big and very intricate riddle. 

It's pretty hard to write a review of this book. A can say that characters are bland, and the pacing of the book is extremely slow, and the author gives us too much unnecessary information about the case, and some parts of the book are annoyingly misleading, but I understand it doesn't matter at all. If you want to read this book and enjoy it, you shouldn't expect Tana French's (for example) writing with a carefully depicted investigation, deeply written characters, and a well-built plot. The only important thing here is the case. 

So, here is a case. 

Heikichi Umezawa, a painter, was found dead in his studio and police found with him a really weird "last will" about his desire to kill his daughters and stepdaughters to create a perfect woman from their bodies. This essay is full of astrology bullshit, and Heikichi Umezawa even claims to be possessed. Okay, he is dead, it's over now, isn't it? Actually no. After his death, all these women were found dead and mutilated according to his plan. For the next forty years, everyone tries to solve this mystery, there are tons of theories from "these crimes were committed by Heikichi Umezawa's apprentice" to "aliens or intelligence agency did that". The actual investigation starts in the 1970s when a woman brings her father's last confession to Kiyoshi Mitarai, a full-time astrologist and a part-time detective, and his assistant Kazumi Ishioka. It happens to be related to this old cold case. 

The author gives us all the clues and even breaks the fourth wall to tell us about it. You should try to connect all the dotes by yourself and then compare it to Kiyoshi Mitarai's explanation. 

In reviews on Goodreads and our local Livelib Kiyoshi Mitarai and Kazumi Ishioka are usually compared with Sherlock and Watson, but "quirky detective and his down to earth assistant" is just a common trope in XX century detective stories, so I find this comparison a bit annoying. Overall The Tokyo Zodiac Murders gives a huge "classic detective" vibe, and I like it. Some of the bits of Kadzumi's own investigation were written beautifully. Kiyoshi's rant about Sherlock Holmes was cringy and funny in the same time because he was like "meh, all these western detectives suck, I'm better, astrology will help me to solve a mystery", but of course astrology didn't help him, and he solved the mystery in the same way that western detectives do. 

I really liked this first part with Heikichi Umezawa's "last will": it was wild. 

Virgin modern serial killers from modern thrillers: I will kill them because I hate them and I'm evil! 

Chad serial killer from 1930s: Here is 50 pages long essay where I justify killing my own daughters because of astrology. 

Unfortunately, for me crime seemed to be overcomplicated, the riddle was very interesting, but I found an answer a bit unsatisfying. 

3.5 out of 5 for me, but I think this book is hard to recommend to someone.

Playing With Stones by Maria Fedotova

Surprisingly I liked this book a lot. Usually, I don't read children's books and so I can't compare it with other children's books.

It's an autobiographical story about a girl named Nulginet (sorry I don't know how to write it down properly in Latin alphabet) who lives in the community of reindeer herders. She is 6-8 years old during this book and she travels with her mother (who is really cool by the way) and a bunch of reindeers. Stories are very short and simple, I think their target audience is children of the same age as the main character, writing seems good. I like how these stories were presented. They feel true and authentic, you see a girl living with her mother in the tundra, not a grown woman who writes about it. Also, it was interesting to read about reindeer herder's community from someone who was raised in it, not an outside observer. 

I can understand why some parents are disturbed by this book. It deals with death casually, and there are some purposefully unhappy stories. For example, a story about premature baby deer who dies in Nulginet's arms. Tbh I'm glad that the author didn't make her stories super nice and happy because it's not how life works (especially life in these harsh conditions).

The last part of the book, where Nulginet went to school, was a bit boring for me. There were some regular school stories, nice but nothing special. 

Overall it was a nice book, solid 4 out of 5.

You’ve Got Mail: A Cautionary Tale by Hei Dan Bai

This is an ongoing translation, but I feel like I need to write about it. 

The translation is available here: https://blackbox-tl.com/novels/ygmct/

Almost forty years old government official Wu Xingzi from a small village finds his life so boring and bland that he wants to commit suicide at his 40th birthday, and he doesn't want to die a virgin, but here is a problem: he lives in the middle of nowhere, he doesn't have a lot of money, high social status or handsome face, and he is also gay. A man from a village tells him about Peng society: an association for gentlemen who want to find themselves a male partner. Wu Xingzi joins this society to find another humble middle-aged man to be a partner with. All he gets are a bunch of hand-drawn dick pics (he enjoys them very much) and a local Christian Grey on his tail.

General Guan, the local Christian Grey, is a super beautiful (it is not surprising he hasn't found a wife yet, even the most beautiful maidens seem mediocre in comparison to him) powerful young general and also an asshole who expect other people to tremble in front of him. He seduces poor Wu Xingzi quickly but here is a thing: Wu Xingzi isn't Anastasia, he is a regular man, he has an established life and is very suspicious about general Guan.

I don't think it's a proper read for a person who wants to read a compelling romance. It more like a deconstructivist take on a stereotypical trashy romance novel and trashy BL. General Guan is portrayed as a magnificent asshole but he treated like a regular asshole. He has a long-lasting crush on his former teacher, but it isn't treated like a beautiful one-side romance, it's treated as an unhealthy shit which led characters nowhere. 

I love how characters are written in this novel, especially the two main characters.

The author mockingly depicts general Guan as one of these problematic and fucked up but extremely hot love interests, who is good at everything and can make you come for ten times during one night, but also general Guan has more depth. He is not an asshole for the sake of being an asshole and turn into a good guy after falling in love. He is an arrogant young master from a very influential and rich family, he has a high-level position it the military, and he expects people with lower social standing to seek for his attention and compete for it with other people around him. Especially his lovers who can gain something from him (it was pretty common for a high-ranking man in Ancient China to give their male lovers a government official position of something like that). He is smart and manipulative, and he is used to playing with his lovers and expects them to participate in all these manipulation-jealousy-seeking for attention games. I don't feel for him but he is a well-written character and he doesn't change at the moment, his character development seems pretty realistic to me in the translated part of the novel, and I like how the author makes his self-absorbed self work against him. 

And Wu Xingzi is my favorite! He is the most relatable character in a romance novel I've ever seen. I don't know what it says about me because he literally wanted to commit suicide at the beginning of the novel. But overall he is just a chill guy who just wants a dick, tasty food, and some distraction from his extremely boring life. I like how he is not willing to change his way of living immediately, and how he doesn't trust general Guan. I like how he doesn't participate in all these "love games" with ignoring each other, causing jealousy, etc, and how he is completely deaf to all attempts to manipulate him into participating in this bullshit. He never plotted and schemed against other people, and it kinda helps him. Yes, he doesn't see throw all these manipulators surrounding general Guan, but at the same time, he is insensitive to their attempts to offend him in the way they usually offend people of their social standing. Also, I think he is a good example of an older character in romance because he is attached to his usual life (despite it bored him to death) and very cautious about any changes, it's hard for him to fall in love and he has very down to earth view on life. 

Another good thing about this novel: it deals very well with social inequality (I can't believe I'm writing about social inequality in a cheesy BL novel): from casual lack of respect for people from lower classes to the fact that Wu Xingzi, a poor man from a village counts old in his 39, and it's rare for people from a village to stay active and healthy after 50, and general Guan, a rich trained man from a big city, can live way longer. Also, Wu Xingzi doesn't have a courtesy name. 

Of course, I have some criticism:

1) I don't think a subplot with general Guan and his crush was developed enough. There should be a gradual change in their relationship, but in the novel, it feels chopped. It's like there should be some additional scenes with these two. 

2) Sexual scenes in this novel are highly unrealistic. it's appropriate for this kind of story to have very long and kinky sex-scenes, but they are just... anatomically weird. They look like sex scenes from 30000 words long PWP fic with five lines of kinks in the description where characters have mind-blowing sex for three days straight. 

Tbh, normally I wouldn't read such a novel because I prefer healthy friends to lovers romances, but this trainwreck of a romance is somehow very satisfying. It's fucked up and funny and I love it.

4 out of 5 stars this far.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, a rant review

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

EXPECTATIONS: 

REALITY:

As you can see from the title of this post I didn't like the book, bit in the beginning, I want to tell about the things I actually liked. 

I liked a magic system in this book because it based on shamanism, not your regular witchcraft. I think it's an excellent choice for dark fantasy since it requires some dangerous practices to connect to the gods or spirits, and shaman doesn't fully control spirits, their life and soul can be in danger. In this book, it is an especially dangerous way to use magic and I respect it. 

I really liked Rin. She is this kind of character who is cruel to herself and to others, and this is very believable for a person who has such a harsh childhood. She doesn't have the luxury to stop and reflect her decisions, to have some spare time for herself, she is determined to climb higher and higher since she hasn't any backup. I like how the author didn't make a Rin "she maybe harsh and aggressive on the surface but actually a big softie inside" type of a character. She is stubborn, selfish, she is ready to (and too quick to) make sacrifices for the victory. And from the beginning, we can see how the author building a road for her future downfall. I like how the blind determination she has is both her strength and her flaw: she is like a horse in blinders, she sees only a narrow way to the victory and don't really think about its cost. I like how she has the same self-destructive tendencies from the start, how she gives herself completely unhealthy incentives. It isn't good and relatable, but clearly shows us how she ended up with what she has at the end of the book. I think Rin's character development is the best thing in the book. 

And here we go. 

Unfortunately, other characters weren't developed enough. The most ridiculous one is definitely Nezha. How did I suppose to believe this rude and aggressive guy with the impulse control of two years old child is actually a well-educated young man from a noble family? Does he have any brain cells? I thought he should make useful connections for his future career in the academy but all he does is punching other students and earning fame of an aggressive dangerous asshole. I mean it's ok for him (as a spoiled arrogant rich person, of course, I don't think it's ok) to be an asshole towards Rin because she is a girl from nowhere without a family, but the author said that Nezha was extremely violent to all others students. And in the second part of the book, he suddenly becomes a good guy. 

I think only two side characters were properly developed: Kitay and Altan. They both have their stories and personalities, and it's natural how Rin leaned to the Altan who has the same self-destructive tendencies and how she is ok with his abuse because she does the same shit with herself, but I really wanted more development of their relationship (maybe in even more unhealthy and destructive way). Other characters are just.,. bland. Especially the Cike. They are a walking stereotype of "quirky group of misfits" and act like ran away from some Marvel comic series for teenagers. 

I was especially disappointed in worldbuilding. It's just... Bad. This can be every random fantasy setting with class inequality and this weak version of patriarchy which can provide some insults towards the main character but is never strong enough to be ingrained in the main character's mind so she can appeal without any problems to the target audience of the book. And writing style doesn't add any kind of immersion, because it sounds very modern. The author hadn't even attempted to adapt her writing style for her own world. I didn't expect the main character calling her vagina "scarlet cave" or "jasper gates" but can we at least have an impression that we read about an actual person living in an eastern pseudohistorical setting, not some modern girl in wuxia drama costume. 

And I wanted to know more about this setting. We had some infodumps about its history, mythology, and social structure, but the author doesn't give us these small details about customs and everyday life that make the world vivid and different. 

Like for example episodes in Kitay's house are super sloppy. It was a great opportunity to introduce us to the everyday life of wealthy people in the capital city. But actually, we found out nothing about them. They are just... Rich. They eat expensive food. Kitay's family has small dogs. That's all. Seriously? 

And all the book is like that. It feels very lazy: we have an actual Chinese book and some actual Chinese names and mythological creatures, and we also have a bunch of made-up stuff that doesn't even sound Chinese. I can't fucking believe we have a character named Venka in Chinese fantasy. I've read a book in Russian translation and I was so confused when I saw it in the English text. And I really don't know why the author deliberately used these weird names that completely ruin the integrity of a fantasy world because they are just very random and don't work for worldbuilding. I can imagine some uneducated white American guy doing this because he is just stupid, but the author clearly isn't a white American guy. Also, I feel so sorry for a person who translated this book into Russian. Here is a thing: we use a special system to write down Chinese words that were written down in the Latin alphabet. It's completely different from the way we write down regular English words in the Cyrillic alphabet. It the book we have some names that are at least sound like something that could be Chinese name and the translator can write them down properly. But what can she do with all these venkas?..

Also, this lack of consistently written setting leads us to the problem I have with a lot of fantasy books where we have our protagonist is a woman from lower classes. As I said earlier, patriarchy in this kind of fantasy is usually decorative and doesn't really affect our main character and female characters near her (however this book doesn't have any proper female characters besides Rin, they are either very stereotypical antagonists (evil stepmother, mean girl, demonic seductress) or don't have any personality at all). This book also deals with classism in the same poor way. Of course, local Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson are rude with Rin because of her background but we never see how it affects Rin. Yes, there is Nezha who is treated better than everyone else because his father is an influential person, but it's not how classism works. I mean yes this is a part of the problem, but classism and patriarchy are deeply ingrained in our society and our minds. And Rin is like "I don't give a fuck about it", and everything is suddenly ok. Yes, she studies very hard, way harder than her classmates from wealthy families, but she doesn't have any inner struggles the real woman in this society will have. She is so conveniently unaffected by patriarchy. She is so conveniently doesn't want to (and doesn't need to) interact with all these classist assholes. Her uterus is easily removed (I presume this scene should show us how determined Rin is about her future but she forgets about it so easily and has no consequences so I can't perceive it as a sacrifice) so she can continue her career without having her periods and without risk of pregnancy. Because, you know, we can have only two types of women on the battlefield: either they are just like men or they raped and tortured for drama. 

Uh... I think I'm digging too deep. 

Usually, I'm in the "I want this to be standalone" camp, but this time I think this book can be two separate books. For me, it feels too rushed. I'd prefer to have two books instead of this one so the author can give more attention to Rin's education, her relationships with fellow students, and worldbuilding in the first one and to war in the second. The pace of the book seems too fast, I was listening to a part about war and everything was described even more sparingly than it was in the first part: there should be months of the exhausting war but as a reader, I can't feel it. All actions seem to take only a couple of weeks. New characters in the second part were written badly and I felt no connection to them so I didn't really worry about them. There were a lot of over-the-top graphic descriptions of violence, but in my opinion, they lack both artistic quality and emotional connection with the reader because there is just a bunch of cannon-fodder characters suffering. Or maybe I'm an insensitive bitch, I don't know. Only scenes in the laboratory really disturbed me. I think it's mostly because the pace finally slowed and there was a proper time left to feel bad about characters, but Dr. Shiro acts like a villain from the old James Bond film, and this ruins immersion. 

Also, there are some really weird moments.

For example, a government official wanted Rin as his first wife. Why? She is an uneducated girl with regular appearance. Her family isn't influential, they don't have any useful connections. 

Or this thing with cutting hair. Rin's teacher advised her to cut her hair and it's supposed to be "for school" but actually nobody in her academy has to cut their hair short, it's completely their choice. Tbh guys with short hair are the most egregious waste of ancient Chinese setting I've ever seen in my life. 

I was waiting for the entire book for an explanation of why poppy wars here are called poppy wars because they seem to be usual wars for territory. 

How you can have hallucinations from regular poppy seeds? 

But it doesn't matter this much. 

The proper word for this book for me is - underwhelming. I'm sure the author put a lot of effort into recreating historical events and making parallels with the history of East-Asian countries, but that doesn't make great fantasy. It fills so... Gutless. It's like "hey, do you like edgy war fantasy with a strong female character? Here it is, it has a slightly exotic setting but there is nothing to disturb westerners' mind! We have these simple names easy to remember (not two names and a title like in the actual Chinese history), it will be super easy to consume after tons of regular western fantasy, nothing will challenge your mind, and our protagonist is your usual edgy not-like-other-girls aggressive young woman just like tons of other female protagonists, and here we have a bunch of pretty typical characters you would meet in every other fantasy novel, and also we have this quirky squad of soldiers with superpowers who act like modern teenagers because we want them to be relatable". Sorry, I just really disappointed after all these 5-star reviews. I give the book 2,5 out of 5.