The book is centered around the death of the Emperor, and that he told his daughter that she would be the ruler, but instead, names his successor as Lu’s cousin, Set. Lu is beyond furious about this, and in turn, leads to a series of events there is no going back from.

Lu is determined to be the “Girl King” – a derogatory term used to describe her because she wants to rule the country, but tries to make light of this, not wanting to show it get to her. Eventually she makes the “Girl King” into her signature. Lu is everything her mother doesn’t want her to be, and everything her father needs her to be. She tries her hardest, and despite all the obstacles she faces, comes out on top. Definitely living up to the Strong Female Character trope!

Minyi, also known as Min, is Lu’s sister. Everything is not as it seems with Min, as she is portrayed as shy and mousy, to be made into what people want her to be. However, it soon becomes known that Min is a force to be reckoned with. Min tries to do the best for her and her country, but gets led astray. I feel like Min just wants to do the right thing, whereas everything just keeps going wrong for her. I have such a soft spot for her, despite everything she becomes.

Nokhai, or Nok through the book, is the character who gets in trouble by doing nothing. I love Nok so much, and want so much for him. Nok is sweet and caring, and wants a peaceful life. But you know those characters who just attract trouble? Yeah, that’s what happened to Nok, and it ended up with him going on the journey of a lifetime. Nok is pure and I just want all the best for him.

The plot of the book had be hooked, although it took me a little while to get into it. There was so much that I wanted to know about, that I didn’t get to find out. I am so looking forward to the sequel (but not the v v long wait), where I hope to have all my questions answered.

My only issues with the book are that it needs to be proof-read before it goes to publication as there are issues with grammar and punctuation. This didn’t seem to take away from the story, but it is something that needs to be finalised before publication.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book around half way through. I was struggling to get myself fully immersed into the world and didn’t feel much passion for the story, which is a shame as I was so, so, so excited for this book. The premise is promising and I will pick this book up again at some point and try to finish, as perhaps it just wasn’t the right book for me at the time, but unfortunately I was a little disappointed. I understand why so many would love it, but it wasn’t for me personally.

I don't read a huge amount of YA fiction, but fantasy is my favourite of the YA genre, as I'm not too familiar with the genre, I feel I am really easy to please, in the sense that don't know all the tropes because they're all still new to me. So, the fact that this novel is underwhelming an unseasoned fantasy reader like me is the reason for my DNF @ 52%.

I liked Lu, as a main character, but I struggled to connect with the plot as a whole. I couldn't believe in the 'villains', and I did not like Min's character at all. It would have been great if I didn't like her character in a 'love to hate' way showing the author has crafted a character that evokes emotion in me. Instead, I found her to be weak, in a self-pitying, annoying way. Her character contributed largely to my struggle with this one, as she has a leading role in this novel, Sadly, the plot just never grabbed my attention, it didn't make me invested in the the plight of these characters.

Not every book can be for everyone, and sadly, this one wasn't for me.

I’m not quite sure what I expected of this book, but I didn’t get it. That’s not to say this isn’t a good read. It’s classic YA Fantasy with two royal sisters, one beloved by her father and raised pretty much as a boy, while the meeker, younger one is favoured by their mother and henpecked into being the quiet dutiful one. It unfolded exactly as anticipated, with some nice magical additions and a wolf-boy who was actually the most interesting character for me in what I hoped would be a more interesting Asian-based female-empowered book.

It’s not bad, but I had hoped for something more original. The setting isn’t anything I haven’t seen before. Same with the plot. Same with the characters. Lu is driven, naive, selfish, but mostly means good, even if she is often blinded by her privilege. Min is quiet and downtrodden, with a hidden core of rage that has interesting consequences. Their father is weak, their mother is ambitious, their cousin is a spoiled monster, Brother is sinister, there are a couple of noble mentors lingering in the shadows and some powerful ghostly people who show up at conveniently useful moments, all set in an empire close to fracturing beneath the weight of its own cruelty. All familiar enough that it hardly matters that the world is very thinly developed and the characters have little depth, while their whole journey could pretty much be summed up as “in the woods”, for all the detailed descriptions we get.

Even Nok, my favourite, isn’t particularly original, being the handsome boy who has lost everything to the empire, even if he once befriended a princess – and paid a high price for it. I liked him most because he was less of a cliché, beaten down by his losses rather than fired up by them, frightened of responsibility and not a natural leader by any means, although clearly about to be forced to become one. He’s definitely the more passive character when Lu is around, which made a nice change. There’s also the wolf, which probably had a lot to do with why I liked him.

So, eh, I don’t know. It’s a nice enough book, and if I hadn’t read a dozen others just like it I probably would have enjoyed it more. It’s okay at what it does – if light on world-building, descriptions and character depth – but in a genre already packed with this exact same story, the promising elements that made me pick it up in the first place simply didn’t materialise, leaving me feeling sadly disappointed. This is my fault (and why it gets 3 stars instead of 2). The blurb told me exactly what this book would be, I just naively believed there had to be something more to it. There wasn’t. But if the blurb is exactly the thing you like to read, go for it.

Arc provided by the publishers via Netgalley

I had such high hopes for this book. It was one of my most highly anticipated books of 2019 and I was so happy to receive an ARC of it.
*sigh*
The main characters are mainly women, with Min and Lu being the most central. It was great to see women being such a central role especially in what is based in ancient Asia. However, the princesses are so infuriating. Lu who has to go on the run, but she feels so entitled to everything. Min who is deemed weak and the 'nice' one becomes such a bitch towards everyone with no real reason too. Although I did find the former Empress interesting, it would have been good to find out more about her and the past with her, the Emperor and Tsai.
I didn't understand the romance between Nok and Lu and it just seemed like it was put there because it could be. There was no chemistry between them and it was just sudden.
The story had a slow start and I didn't really get into it until about 40% through and although it didn't feel like a task to read, nothing really significant happens until the journey begins. There are a few tropes written into this book that seemed to just be there for the sake of it, and I enjoy most tropes but most I find have some purpose in the continuation of the story and I just couldn't find it here; there was even an attempted rape scene which added nothing to the story.
Although I think I will still read the sequel, it's a bit exhausting with the lack of significant character development apart from to have a protagonist and antagonist.

I'm unfortunately going to be (temporarily, at least) DNF'ing The Girl King. I absolutely deplore not finishing books, but right now The Girl King isn't the right fit for me (this is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me"), and I feel so sad.

At first sight, The Girl King has everything in a YA Fantasy book I'd usually love. Sibling conflicts? Check. Princesses? Check. Shapeshifters? Check. Magic? Check. However, it fell through on a couple aspects for me. I don't feel it was as well executed as it could have been. I felt the many POV's (particularly that of Min) slowed down the pacing of the book, and made the more exciting parts (namely scenes where it was Lu's POV) slow down or less exciting than they should have been. Despite this, I loved Yu's writing, and found her descriptions to be vivid and full of life.

As for the characters, I can say without a doubt I enjoyed Lu's POV the most. Despite the fact her scenes had the most going on, she was the most engaging of all 3 main characters. She is a brave, determined young woman who won't let anything - or anyone - stand in her way: qualities I love to see in a heroine, especially in YA. I didn't warm up to Nok until about 48% through the book, around the time where he met up with Lu, and even at my current point in the novel, I still don't fully understand him, and at least right now, he seems a little flat. Sure he has the whole mysterious past that we're slowly piecing together, but that just isn't enough to keep me going, and at nearly half way through what is almost a 500-page tome, I expected more at this point. Lastly, I hated Min's POV/scenes. I haven't come across a character as childish and annoying in a long time. She acted immature in nearly all of her scenes, and I found her remotely bearable on only a small number of occasions. Her scenes slowed down the pacing of the book immensely, I found, and her scenes (at least to me) offered little to no advancement of the plot, unlike Lu's or even Nok's, at a push.

Maybe one day I will revisit and finish reading The Girl King. Maybe that will be tomorrow, or a month, or six months' time - I don't know - but for now, I'm afraid I simply don't have the time nor the energy to commit to a book that, so far, has been dragging it's heels. I'll applaud Yu's efforts: the parts of The Girl King I did like, I really liked, but they were unfortunately outweighed by the bad.

I will, however, still be recommending this book. What I did read, I did enjoy and would encourage others to give it a try for themselves. At some point, I'll finish this, and post a full review on my blog with all my thoughts, and when the sequel is published, I'll be sure to pick it up.

Content warnings for this book include rape, violence/domestic abuse, racial slurs towards a fictional race and addiction.

Lu and Min knew their position in the Empire. Lu is to be their dynasty’s first female ruler and Min her shadow. Everything changed after their father declared their cousin Set as the new Emperor instead of Lu. And the events that followed made the sisters rivals in a war to claim the title of Emperor.

All Hail the Girl King.

Who else’s heart skipped a beat after reading that title? THE GIRL KING. The title alone made me go to Edelweiss and Netgalley to request the ARC. H*ck I even thought of sending an e-mail to publishers which I’ve never done before. I was that hyped. It seemed interesting. Sisters rivalry and the words; betrayal, ambition and sacrifice, are mentioned in the blurb. It’s also Asian-inspired. What’s there not to like, right?

Sadly, this book slightly disappointed me. The premise is fine. I really liked the whole concept of the sisters turn rivals and one’s a warrior and badass and the other suddenly learns she has powers. (Not a spoiler because this is revealed in the synopsis on Goodreads.) I don’t know how others see this contrast but for me, it’s a good one. See, the badass one really knows how to fight and the weaker one has some kind of a power/magic. It balances the stakes between the two and I liked that. Also there’s a shifter thrown in the story, an oracle, missing royals, and a cousin. (As you know, cousins are always antagonistic. LOL)

But somehow, the execution and the pace of this book made the book a chore to read at times. I even thought of DNF’ing it. The pace is not really slow as a snail but slower than moderate. Though it started with such ominous prologue, the connections that I’d loved to guess till the end are rather revealed early making the twists and turns through the rest of the book mediocre.

In other word, the execution was a flop making this book seemed just another YA fantasy. And if I’d be very honest, I say I’ve read this one before, except the setting changed and the names are obviously Asian. I also didn’t fully understand the MAGIC. But maybe that’s just me.

Another thing… I love romance (or a hint of it) in every book I read, whatever the genre is, so having the romance in this is completely fine with me. But seeing the whole picture, I think the romance is not really needed.

I wouldn’t mind reading book 2 though coz that sudden shift in Min’s character in the end? I’m curious. But HOPEFULLY, this series stops in duology coz it already became tedious at some points in book 1. And oh, have I mentioned anything about my fave character? No? Well, it’s because there’s none. Everyone’s fine but not more than that. I even dislike their too much inner monologues.

This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2019, so I feel my disappointment in ‘The Girl King’ is my own high expectation not being fulfilled.
There were a number of times I put this book down for days at a time and had to force myself back into reading, I felt the pace just wasn’t moving fast enough, and it had so many YA tropes that have already been included in other novels. I was also excited for this as it was marketed as Asian inspired fantasy, however the names of the characters could be changed and the story could easily become based on any culture.A disappointing but still moderately entertaining read.

Thank you to Net galley and Bloomsbury for sending me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated books for 2019 but unfortunately, it just fell flat for me.

The Girl King is the first book in a young adult fantasy series which is marketed as an Asian fantasy.

It started off fairly well but I quickly got bored - the characters and world lacked depth for me and there are so many YA tropes in this book. Also, other than the character names and the clothing style, I personally couldn't see anything Asian about this fantasy - if you'd replaced Lu and Min with Kate and Emma then it would have read like most other fantasies.

The writing style also just didn't engage me - I read continued reading this only because all my physical books are packed and I think that if I wasn't moving and had other options, then I would have put this down and picked up something else.

The series has potential to improve in the next book but I probably won't be picking it up as there are so many other books that I would like to read first.

I was so excited to read this book as I kept hearing about it on social media but I sort of felt underwhelmed. It had some really great parts but I just didn’t love it like I thought I would.
When I started reading the book I felt it was really slow and actually took me a while to get through the first half of the book but then it was a lot more fast paced near the end.
I think that my favourite part was the characters themselves, Lu and Min are sisters but are very different from each other. Lu is older brave, strong and smart. She is someone who holds onto her ideals no matter what life throws her way and knows that what her father did was unjust to Nok and his people. I also liked that she had to face her privilege as a princess and being sheltered from a lot of hardships that others her age have to go through.
Min on the other hand is quite naïve and coddled by her mother and I actually didn’t like her at all. She is spiteful, jealous and petty and has a weird skewed view on what a woman should be like. I was rolling my eyes at her all the time. Though as the story progresses she does go through some changes and discovers she has a magical power which made her more interesting and I do want to know more about what she will be capable of doing.
Lu and Nok travel together for majority of the book while Lu is in search of an army to take on Set and take back her throne and initially I really enjoyed their interactions and how they slowly developed a friendship despite having reasons to hate each other. The romance however felt underdeveloped and unnecessary. I felt they would have been better as friends and allies.
The main issue I had with the book was the plot, I felt that it dragged for majority of the book and I actually got bored. Only the ending felt more fast paced but then it felt rushed like everything happened at once.
Overall this book just wasn’t for me. I really wanted to love it especially as when I saw the title I fell in love but it just didn’t live up to expectations. But I do think that a lot of others will love this.

I loved this! Fast action, good characters, lots of jeopardy! Can't want for the series to continue! Reading other reviews on Amazon (how? It won't let me review as the book is pre-release? Maybe it is possible in the US? ) other readers found it slow with too much dialogue and the world unfinished. I didn't find this at all. So it may be a Marmite book...

Thank you to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for giving me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

CW: substance abuse, mentions of genocide, graphic violence

• This is one of my most-anticipated releases of the year and sadly, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. First of all, I wasn't hooked by the prologue. It's important to note that it was confusing and I felt as if I was waddling through quicksand the whole time. I can hear you saying, "BUT RAIN, AREN'T ALL BOOKS CONFUSING AT THE START??" Well, yes but I'm a mood reader. I tend to put off books that don't spark my interest. I just pushed through The Girl King because I had high hopes that it was going to redeem itself. Well, it actually did. Barely.

• I do appreciate Lu's character. I love her strength and her fighting spirit. She will also punch anyone in the face if they say she's not capable in becoming the first female Emperor of their empire. Lu is not just physically strong. She's also smart. The influx of female characters in YA who are NOT just strong just because they can wield a sword makes me glad. This is the quality content we deserve.

• Minyi, on the other hand, is someone I want to slap with bad decisions. She sure had a lot of them. She is Lu's sister and is portrayed to be so starkly different from her. I get why she was written to be one spiteful blob of insecurities but I couldn't help but feel angry at her all the time. Her naiveté and willingness to get into an abusive relationship did not help to lighten my feelings toward her too.

Note: although I have negative mojo vibes for Min, kudos to Mimi Yu for writing such a complex character

• I was also disappointed with the romance subplot in this book because it was predictable and underdeveloped. Lu and Nokhai had the potential to be a good couple but the book was too plot-driven to give them some semblance of a relationship development. I saw some chemistry between them at the start of the book but Mimi Yu wasn't able to hold on to that as the story progressed, unfortunately.

• Nevertheless, I still liked the fantasy elements in this book. I especially enjoyed reading about the shape-shifting and the Inbetween helped in giving the book an atmospheric vibe.

• This book is also fast-paced and if you're looking for a quick read, this one's for you. I had several problems with the plot execution but The Girl King is quite a page-turner. In fact, I stayed up all night just to finish it and woke up to very healthy eye bags. They weigh a ton now and are a bit bothersome. I seriously recommend y'all to have eight hours of sleep. Having designer bags under the eyes is normal but not desirable.

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on December 28, 2018]

The Girl King is the first book in a young adult fantasy series, and while it is a solid beginning, its trope-y nature, simplistic worldbuilding and weak writing made for a mostly unremarkable book. But that's not to say it didn't have potential.

My problem with YA fantasy is that I have read too much of it. I have read enough "princess tries to take back the throne while falling in love" stories for a lifetime. And I still find some I like, but most of them don't work for me anymore. While it did get some things right, The Girl King ended up not working for me.

One of the things I appreciated the most about this book was the way the main character was portrayed. Lu is an ambitious girl who doesn't let other people use her as a pawn, and I'm sure some readers will find that frustrating because of how headstrong she is, but I didn't. I love ambitious female main characters, especially when they don't end up being the villains of the story, especially when they're somewhat selfish and think of their own good and goals firs. It may not make them good rulers, but it makes them more realistic, interesting teenagers to read about.
And it's not like this book shies away from the evils of imperialism. The main character wants to be Empress, but she's confronted with the fact that what she saw as her birthright is based on the suffering of colonized and exploited populations - she is not the rightful ruler, she's the lesser of two evils. I really appreciated this discussion, I almost never see it in books about royalty.

Another thing I liked was that the love interest isn't a masculine, confident guy whose personality is 90% smirks. Nokhai is as insecure and confused as everyone else, he's more of a "soft" love interest than a fighter like Lu, even though he can literally shapeshift into a wolf. Unfortunately, I often felt like he lacked depth, but that's true for almost every character in here.

And then there's Min. Min is Lu's younger sister, and her storyline, while unique, left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm probably reading too much into it, but I wasn't a fan of the fact that an addict and a feminine girl coded as mentally ill (her thought process often read as anxiety) are shown as morally corrupt while Lu, who is masculine and brave and pretty, is fundamentally Good. However, I did like an aspect of Min's PoV too: she's a far more realistic portrayal of a teenager with magical powers than most YA protagonists. Teenagers can be selfish, and becoming so powerful this quickly usually doesn't end well.

I liked the beginning of this book, but the more I read, the less I cared. During the second half, The Girl King becomes a travel book, and a really trope-y one at that: the characters get captured and then rescued, they end up meeting other relevant characters because of contrivance, they discover that characters they thought dead were not that dead after all, and find love. Trope-y books can be great, if they're well-written, but the writing wasn't as strong as it should have been.
To work for me, travel fantasy books need a really strong sense of atmosphere. Here, there was almost none; the writing was very dry and the descriptions vague and uninteresting.

I read an ARC and I hope this changes in the final edition, but the writing also felt very juvenile at times. There's enough snarling and shrieking that I noticed it (I usually don't), and the dialogue tags are often redundant. Sometimes this book tells you that a character was clearly offended, when that was, of course, obvious from the dialogue itself.

The worldbuilding wasn't that interesting either. I liked the mythology and and everything involving Yunis and the gods, but as I never got a sense of how anything looked like, I couldn't really get into the world. I still think it had potential, and I hope the sequel explores more of it, but I don't think I will be reading it.

The Girl King is the kind of book that only works because of the multiple narrators. Had this novel only chosen one person to follow it would have been extremely dull. As it happens, there's one perspective that's quite slow and we're not sure if The Girl King would have benefited from leaving it out.

The world... is interesting. The magic system was fun and the politics were okay.

See, here's the thing. I've read this book before. Many times. Hundreds of times, it feels like. The Girl King sounded good, but it does absolutely nothing that hasn't already been done by countless YA Fantasy books.

Maybe you think I'm wrong. Perhaps, like me, you are excited for what is being called an "Asian-inspired" fantasy. How can that be like so many books we've seen before? Except-- what makes this book Asian-inspired? Having the names Min and Lu? There's nothing Asian about the mythology or the world. If you changed the characters' names to something like John and Kate, no one would ever guess this is supposed to have East Asian inspiration.

What we do have here is a young woman looking to reclaim her throne. She journeys around with standard Hot Dude™ and hopes to recruit the Yunians, a group of people with magic, to her cause. It's not a short journey, either. I was ready to forgive the book for being so long because I thought it was a standalone, but it turns out we can expect at least one sequel.

» The Characters
The book is written in third person, which probably doesn't help us warm to the characters. This was a real problem for me. I couldn't care about anyone.

The three third-person perspectives are that of Lu, badass warrior and heir to the throne, her sister Min, younger and weaker and - for the most part - used as a pawn by everyone in the book, and Nok, a slipskin who can sometimes become a wolf. Nok feels interchangeable with most YA fantasy love interests; Lu feels interchangeable with most YA fantasy badass heroines. Only Min remotely stood out, though perhaps for the wrong reasons. Her naivete and self-pity quickly grew tiring.

» The Journey
What is with these journeys? Long, dull treks in which the heroine and potential lover must spend so much time together-- oh my, what could happen?

Thankfully, we returned to the palace for Min's perspective in between Lu's journeying or else I might have died of boredom.

» The Twists/Reveals
Obviously, I'm not going to give anything away, but there is NOTHING that comes as a surprise in this book. The earlier twist can be guessed in the first couple of chapters, and come on, did anyone reading this really believe for a second that (spoiler)?

I really expected something more from The Girl King. Unfortunately, it is almost indistinguishable from other YA fantasy books. Give it a few weeks and this will have blended into all the rest in my mind. If you are on the lookout for fantasy inspired by East Asia, I recommend The Poppy War, Girls of Paper and Fire or Forest of a Thousand Lanterns instead.

I am a big fan of books that play with the sister dynamic. It was something that felt very big quite a while ago and seems to have somewhat fallen out of fashion in recent years. That being said I've read a couple of sisterly books of late and with the popularity of books like Caraval and (hopefully) this book I suspect we might see an increase in sisters gracing our bookshelves. This sisterly duo was particularly interesting to me as the two of them don't start the book as either the closest friends or as terrible enemies. It is very much the case that their relationship is shaped by the events of the story - which is even more powerful given that for the most part, they don't actually see each other after the first few chapters. I thought that was a really interesting take on a dual POV book and it was a great way of showing how people can either change or be manipulated (or a bit of both). 

What was fantastic for me is that I actually enjoyed both points of view, where normally I end up with a stand-out and then the other one that I tolerate. In this case, however, both stories are very different and both are extremely well conceived. It does mean you kind of get the best of both worlds, if you like court politics and all the subterfuge that comes hand in hand with that then you'll enjoy Min's perspective, if you like 'head off into the woods and stumble upon hard truths about your kingdom' kind of stories then Lu is your girl. I personally, and unsurprisingly given what I've already said, like both.

I am also a fan of hidden/forbidden magic so long as it is done well. I thought that the shapeshifting magic, and the way it was being eradicated by the monarchy, was very powerful, but Min's discovery of her own powers and finding her own voice amongst those who would use her was also hugely significant. Are you beginning to sense a trend? 

The character I wasn't such a big fan of was Nox, I think that's my bias towards female characters shining through. That being said I valued his perspective on things and it did make certain romance plot points all the more satisfying to have his view on things. 

In some ways, this book is very trope-y, and if I were to just describe the plot point by point I think you could easily draw hundreds of comparisons with other YA fantasy books. But it is the book as a whole, the drawing together of all of these different story elements, that makes this book feel particularly new and exciting. 

I will mention that this book is written by an Asian author, therefore counts as ownvoices fantasy - which I love. I really hope Asian fantasy (and other genres) continues to flourish in 2019 because it's been a wonderful year of reading this year.

If you're a YA fantasy fan then I would highly recommend you read this book, whatever you enjoy about the genre I do not doubt that you will be able to find a piece of it in this story. 

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I hate that I've had to put this book down because I really wanted to love it, unfortunately though it wasn't doing it for me. Every time I picked it up to read, I'd make it a couple of pages before my eyes would drift closed or my mind would wander and I was never eager to continue reading. This is probably just a case of 'it's not you, it's me', but I can see the potential with the story and why people would love this. It definitely has some interesting and intriguing story arcs, but I'm just not in the right frame of mind to properly enjoy this. I also never really connected with any of the characters, which hindered my enjoyment of it too.
I might come back to this in the new year when I'm not feeling so scatterbrained and give this a second chance.

I so wanted to love this book. It sounded so good and the characters and premise interested me.

But I got so bored.

I found myself skimming it more and more as I got near the end and I'm not sure why. The plot was interesting or not but the language could get repetitive and something about it felt so slow yet the romance was too fast. There was nothing overtly wrong with it but...it just wasn't for me sadly.

Once in a lifetime, you discover a book that doesn't wraps you in its webs of words nor offers you sleepless nights. "But why?", you wonder. The world building is perfection and the characters are so different and yet so strong and willing to fight for their destiny. So, why? Because you wan to revel in every moment and nuance, to feel the magic surround you and gaze at every setting as if you never will have the change to experience it again. In other words: The Girl King is so epic that you never want it to be over.

Writing: The King Girl is an ode to female strength and power. Mimi Yu's writing is detailed - the author focus on every little detail - and the characters are very well-written - you can find three POVs throughout the book and these are all so different and yet complement each other perfectly. Some of Yu's quotes will forever haunt me.

Characters: A girl king without a crown; a boy wolf without a pack; a new Empress without control. Even though I had a few issues with Min - she was young and naive, but it was frustrating that she didn't realized people were using her to achieve their goals and didn't care about her - I loved Lu's fierceness and Nokhai's caring heart.

Lu breaks conventions and fights to be in charge of her own fate and country. However, because she was born a girl, she is perceived as arrogant (her own sister, Min, points out it so many times how arrogant Lu is, but not even once did she think the same of Set, the new male Emperor) and stubborn for not bending her knee to the patriarchal order. This does not mean Lu doesn't have flaws (a few times she was too headstrong and her actions would put her in dangerous situations), but she wouldn't let the world tell her who she should be and that's an empowering message. As I mentioned above, the story is an ode to female strength, but Nok also deserves to be loved. He's so heartbroken that I wanted to hug him. He lost everything and everyone he cared about not once, but twice. He lost his family, his clan, Omair, he doesn't know how to shapeshift into his wolf. You could feel how much all this loss crushed his soul.

On a side note, the story features one of my favourite romantic tropes: enemies turned to lovers (and no, the romance doesn't shadow the plot).

World building: The East Asian inspired world created by Yu is simply fascinating. The settings, from the Imperial lands to the Gray City in the Inbetween, are mesmeric and atmospheric. This world of gods and magic is enriched with a bewitching cultural and historical background that entices you, leaving behind the desire of learning more about the secrets hidden in these lands.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for fulfilling my wish and providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely raced through this book. Pacey, well-written, powerful (yet vulnerable and relatable) protagonists - a fine addition to SFF. BRING ME BOOK 2!