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Holy shit this book y'all.
Okay so the first thing I noticed about it is that the prose is actually like, quality. Plenty of books have serviceable prose, or invisible prose, or prose that's kinda bad but I'm willing to put up with it for the sake of the other things the book is doing, or prose that makes me mad but is to the tastes of other people (cough catherynne valente cough). This prose just feels (to me, I suppose!) like it's GOOD. It's written by someone who really knows how to put words together in an effective fashion.
But then everything else about this book is ALSO good!! Holy shit! I just want to shove awards at this book. NEXT YEAR AT THE HUGOS.
Anyway it's a book about people who are so inescapably the people they are that you can watch them make bad decisions from a mile off and know they're going to make them, and know they're going to feel they made the right decision, even if there is zero chance that that decision will lead to happiness (for them or anyone else). And it's painful to watch, but also....not, because these people are striving their utmost to reach their stated goals in life, and very competent at it. It's a fascinating complicated mix of things going on!
Fascinatingly complicated mix of things is, in fact, the name of the game for this book all round! This is also present in: people's relationships with their gender, with the most important people in their lives, and with their fate. Especially for the two main characters. Love this for them. Or rather, for me, because it's not exactly fun for them :P
Zhu is an orphan survivor of a famine, who takes on her dead brother's identity in order to try to overcome her fate of nothingness and take on instead her brother's fated greatness. Ouyang is the orphan survivor of his entire family being killed for treason, who was made into a eunuch so the family line couldn't continue, and whose only purpose in life is to be a filial son and get revenge. They're on opposite sides of a war for China's rulership!
( okay yeah this is spoilers )
Okay so the first thing I noticed about it is that the prose is actually like, quality. Plenty of books have serviceable prose, or invisible prose, or prose that's kinda bad but I'm willing to put up with it for the sake of the other things the book is doing, or prose that makes me mad but is to the tastes of other people (cough catherynne valente cough). This prose just feels (to me, I suppose!) like it's GOOD. It's written by someone who really knows how to put words together in an effective fashion.
But then everything else about this book is ALSO good!! Holy shit! I just want to shove awards at this book. NEXT YEAR AT THE HUGOS.
Anyway it's a book about people who are so inescapably the people they are that you can watch them make bad decisions from a mile off and know they're going to make them, and know they're going to feel they made the right decision, even if there is zero chance that that decision will lead to happiness (for them or anyone else). And it's painful to watch, but also....not, because these people are striving their utmost to reach their stated goals in life, and very competent at it. It's a fascinating complicated mix of things going on!
Fascinatingly complicated mix of things is, in fact, the name of the game for this book all round! This is also present in: people's relationships with their gender, with the most important people in their lives, and with their fate. Especially for the two main characters. Love this for them. Or rather, for me, because it's not exactly fun for them :P
Zhu is an orphan survivor of a famine, who takes on her dead brother's identity in order to try to overcome her fate of nothingness and take on instead her brother's fated greatness. Ouyang is the orphan survivor of his entire family being killed for treason, who was made into a eunuch so the family line couldn't continue, and whose only purpose in life is to be a filial son and get revenge. They're on opposite sides of a war for China's rulership!
( okay yeah this is spoilers )
